Don't Go Gently
by Blue Shadowdancer
Summary: Mac and the team follow a serial killer, but someone hidden in the shadows may be following them... Not all of them are safe. Mac & Stella centric, some Flack and DL. Suspense, and lots of it. Final chapter now up!
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: Hello, and welcome to my new story! If you've read my other one, I may as well tell you that this one starts much slower paced, so you'll have to wait a few chapters until the action starts. I'll be doing updates every two days again, unless things happen. Reviews are always very much welcome! Kate x_

_Disclaimer: Recognised characters belong to CBS. Title I took from a wonderful poem by Dylan Thomas, then... altered it. Altered it with love. Sorry, Dylan. _

* * *

_**Don't Go Gently** _

He woke in the middle of the night with tears on his face. He wasn't sure exactly where they came from. He had taught himself not to remember his dreams.

He got up. Dressed in black loose clothes and his running shoes. There was nothing else to do, really. If he lay still, sleep would not welcome him, as he knew from long experience.

He jogged along the empty streets. The steady rhythm of the steady beat of his rubber soles hitting the pavement filled his mind as he breathed in and out in time to the pulse. One, two, one, two. He jogged between the orange pools of streetlamps, blending into the shadows. Cars passed him but he ignored their harsh searchlights which picked him out in white, focusing instead on the muted beat of his footsteps and on his breathing.

After a while he stopped for a break, sitting on the stone steps leading up to someone's front door. He rested his elbows on his knees and dropped his head into his hands, breathing heavily. The cold crept up on him now that he was no longer moving, and he shivered.

In a minute or so he looked up. No cars were moving on this quiet street, and curtains were drawn in all the windows. An affluent neighbourhood. Not one he was likely to be called to. He smiled slightly at catching himself thinking these thoughts. He could never really turn off, but at the moment he didn't want to. Something to focus on. Something outside of him.

A shape disconnected itself from the shadows and padded across the street to him. He let the cat approach and stroked its warm body as it pressed itself against his knee, feeling the soft vibrations of its purring against his hand. The thought idly floated through his mind that perhaps he and the cat were the only two creatures awake in the world, in this strange painted world of black and orange.

The cat left. It didn't look back at him as it melted into another patch of shadows. He stood up, continued running.

He came to an all-night Starbucks a while later. The girl behind the counter smiled tiredly at him when he placed his order. She wore a hooded college jumper with the sleeves rolled up, but her green regulation apron hid the name. He collected the mug of black coffee she poured out and sat at a table in the corner, next to the plate-glass window.

The door chimed gently as another customer entered. A woman with bobbed fair hair, late twenties. She spoke quietly to the girl serving, and sat at a table across the room from him. They were the only two people who wanted coffee from this place at this time. They met each other's eyes and looked away.

His phone rang, the harsh tones shattering the stillness. He pulled it from his belt. "Taylor."

"It's Stella. I didn't wake you?"

"No, I'm not home. Have we got a scene?"

"Yeah, in the park. I'm on my way there now."

"I'll find a cab."

"Tell me where you are, I'll pick you up."

"Ok." He looked out of the window, and saw a sign with the street name which he read out to her.

"Yeah, I know it. I'll be about five minutes."

"See you then." He returned his phone to its holder. The woman across the room was watching him. She had very dark eyes. Sad dark eyes. She dropped her gaze, and he also looked away and out of the window; the quiet clinking of ceramic mugs, as the girl tidied behind the counter, sounding in ripples through the peaceful silence. When Stella's car pulled in on the street outside he stood up, the door chiming again to mark his exit. He crossed the road, and glanced back before he opened the car door. The woman was looking at him through the window, just watching him quietly with those sad eyes. This time it was he who looked away first.

He climbed into the car, still held in the spell of the silent streets and orange lamps. Stella smiled at him, but said nothing just yet, giving him the choice to break the silence. They drove past two blocks, and waited at a set of traffic lights, at which no other cars were trying to go in any direction.

"What do we have?" he asked.

"I don't know yet," Stella replied. "I only got a page, not a call."

"Thanks for the lift."

"Not a problem, it wasn't much of a detour."

They fell silent again. Mac had been expecting Stella to ask him what he was doing in the middle of the city in the middle of the night, but she didn't. She probably knew, or could guess. Sometimes she seemed to be better at reading him than he was at reading himself.

"Couldn't sleep?" she asked gently, as he tried to think of a topic for conversation.

"I woke up. I wasn't feeling tired anymore, so I went for a run." It was mostly true. In fact, it was exactly what had happened. She would know what he'd left out without him having to say it.

"We're here." They got out of the car and Stella pulled her kit and camera from the backseat. She passed the camera to Mac. A squad car was parked along the kerb nearby, but there was no one to be seen. The blue and red lights flashed silently in sequence against the darkness of the evergreen leaves.

"That was quick," Flack said as he appeared around a bend in the dirt path. "I wasn't expecting anyone to show for another ten minutes at least. Don't either of you ever sleep at night?"

Stella smiled. "They do call it the 'City that never sleeps', after all."

"Well, this poor girl isn't going to be waking up. C'mon."

They followed him under the dark tree canopy. After three bends in the path there was an open space, a purposely placed old-fashioned lamppost shining through the branches of a cherry tree laden with pale pink blossoms. They lay on the close-cropped grass beneath, large petals, far less cold than the snowflakes they resembled. They lay also on the girl under the tree.

She was wearing a ball dress. The petals perfectly complemented the pale pink of the soft silky fabric. Her blonde hair was long, and loose. It lay spread around her shoulders, collecting dew. The makeup on her face was perfect to the last detail. She had the appearance of an infinitely delicate porcelain doll. Her feet were bare.

"She's beautiful," Stella said softly.

Mac crouched down to next to her. "Did you find a pair of shoes?" he asked.

"Nope," Flack replied. "I had a look around the area while I was waiting, it seemed odd to me too, but I couldn't find any."

The soles of her feet were clean, and free of any indents or discolourations to show she'd walked over the rough ground. But then, if she'd kept to the grass there wouldn't be any anyway.

"She's cold," said Stella. She rested the back of her gloved hand against the girl's cheek. "She's been here for a while. No obvious cause of death, I'm thinking maybe poison. She doesn't look older than eighteen."

"No signs of a struggle," Flack commented. "It could be suicide."

"Who called it in?" Mac asked.

Flack shrugged. "It was anonymous. About half an hour ago someone called 911 and reported a DB at this location."

"Could have been someone who just happened across her," Mac suggested. "Or, if it is murder, it could have been her killer."

They fell silent, collecting evidence and photographing. A few times, Mac had a strong feeling that there were eyes watching him, eyes which raised the hairs on the back of his neck. Every time he looked round, however, there was no one there. He concentrated hard on the job, ashamed of being so nervous. But he couldn't stop the unease.

It was a quick scene to process. The only piece of evidence they could find was a plastic photographic film capsule, a few yards away from her. There were droplets of a dull, opaque liquid inside. When they finished it was still dark, with only the first pale hint of light to the East. "Do you want a ride back to your apartment?" Stella asked.

"Don't worry, I'll get a cab. I'm out of your way."

"I don't mind."

He thought of the eyes he was almost sure he was imagining and shrugged gratefully.

The three of them walked back to their cars. The girl had been taken by the coroner's van a few minutes before. The dark streets were still empty. Stella was trying to stifle a yawn as she started the engine, and Mac looked out of the window, lost in thought. Something about the woman who had watched him in the coffee shop stayed in his head and he couldn't seem to shake her out. He suddenly realised that Stella was talking.

"What? Sorry."

"I asked what you think happened to that girl."

He thought about it for a second. "I don't know. I'm leaning towards suicide, but something keeps telling me otherwise. I'll wait until after the autopsy."

"Mmm. Same, I think. We're here."

He let himself into his building, and then his apartment. Everything was exactly as he'd left it, of course. No reason why anything would have changed.

Somehow, that was the one thing he'd never managed to get used to. That during times when he was gone, no one would move objects from logical to illogical places, no one would rearrange cushions or use mugs as paperweights for important documents. It was a long time now since he'd missed it consciously, but this strange night was bringing deep-buried thoughts to the surface.

He'd joked to Peyton, once, that he could only get the women who were so untidy, they drove everyone else to distraction. She'd laughed, and told him that to a Marine, every woman would always be untidy. She was probably right, but he missed the clutter which had reminded him that his life was no longer empty. Now everything was neat again, nothing out of place. Nothing superfluous. Nothing that didn't have a function.

He lay on top of his bed, fully clothed, and stared at the ceiling until he could get up and pretend to himself that he'd had a good night's sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

"Did you sleep well?" Stella asked him. She'd been in one of the glass-walled labs from which she had seen him leave the elevator and waved him over. He suspected that she had been waiting for him to arrive.

"Yes, very well," he stated firmly. She raised her eyebrows, but didn't press the matter. "Has our body from the park been to Autopsy yet?"

"Yes, I'm going through evidence just now. She didn't have anything with her apart from the clothes she was wearing. No wallet, purse or cell phone, so no ID as yet. Adam's checking with missing persons. That dress must have been expensive, chances are her family's quite well off, so it's likely they'll have reported her missing already, or will very soon."

"Do we have a COD?" Mac asked as he followed Stella back into the layout lab she had just exited.

"Yes, Sid confirmed that she was poisoned. A blood sample's running through tox as we speak, so we're just waiting for the results. I have to say though, so far nothing suspicious has jumped out. It's quite likely that she killed herself."

Mac picked up the sheaf of photos and leafed through them. They told him nothing new, apart from reminding him again how young she looked. "But then who called it in?"

Stella sighed. "I know. It could still go either way, I suppose, but the evidence just isn't here that there was any foul play involved. Believe me, I've looked. My shift started two hours ago and I've been here since then."

"Keep looking. I'm going to see if I can find Adam." Stella nodded, and returned her attention to the neatly spread clothes.

Mac paced along the glass-sided corridor. There was something still bothering him about the dead girl. It was the lack of any shoes. If she had come to the park of her own accord, the only way in which her feet would be as clean and unmarked as they were was if she had stepped straight from her front door into a car or cab, and then walked on nothing but the grass until she reached the cherry tree.

"Uh, Sir?" Adam appeared in front of him, a sheet of paper clutched in both his hands. "This girl just popped up in missing persons. Is she the one you found?"

Mac took the offered sheet and let his eyes absorb the content. "Cathy Miller, age 17. Reported missing an hour ago. Yes, this is her." In the photo, Cathy Miller was looking straight at the camera and laughing. No shadows behind her blue eyes. "Good work."

"Thanks, Sir." Adam remained on the spot for a second, bobbing slightly on the soles of his feet. Then he took off.

Stella was still in the lab where he'd left her only a few minutes ago. "We've got a name," he said, sliding the paper across the table towards her. She picked it up and read it through.

"Ok, that's great," she said. "I'm finished here though, Mac. Absolutely no evidence. If we can't find anything to say otherwise it'll have to go in the report as a suicide." She looked at his face. "You don't seem convinced."

"Talk to her parents," Mac told her. "Find out which they think is more likely. I'm going to grab Hawkes, get back to the scene and see if I can't turn up any other evidence. Such as a pair of shoes."

"Yeah, that's been bugging me too. Good luck."

- - - - -

Stella approached the woman staring hopelessly out of the window. Her eyes were red, but all other traces of tears had been fiercely wiped from her face. "Mrs Miller?" she asked gently.

The woman nodded. "I'm sorry for coming alone," she said. Her voice was barely above a whisper. "I know you asked for us both, but David's at work. He's very busy." She sounded desperately apologetic on her husband's behalf. Stella wondered what could possibly drive a man to stay at work instead of supporting his wife who had come to view their daughter's body.

"Mrs Miller, you don't have to apologise. Are you ready?" Mrs Miller nodded slightly, and drew her pale features into a stiff mask.

Stella led her into the empty morgue. She had always hated this part of the job above all else. No parent should have to see their child dead in front of them.

The steel drawer was already slid out. Stella gently folded back the sheet to reveal the white, cold face.

Mrs Miller seemed to crumple slightly. Her mouth opened in a silent gasp of pain. "That's her. That's my Cathy," she whispered.

"I'm so sorry for your loss," Stella said, hating the trite phrase, but meaning it. "I'll give you a minute."

"No, please stay."

"Of course. Tell me when you're ready."

Cathy's mother reached out a shaking hand and brushed the tips of her fingers ever so gently along her daughter's cheek. Then she stepped back and looked imploringly at Stella, who understood and laid the sheet back to cover the bluish lips and closed eyes of Cathy's china-doll face.

"Could you follow me this way please?" Mrs Miller followed Stella mutely into the room used for these situations, and sat in the nearest chair, as indicated by Stella who took a seat facing her. There wasn't a table between them, to try to present an illusion that this was something resembling a social chat, rather than an interview. "Mrs Miller, with your permission I need to ask you a few questions."

"Susan. It's Susan."

"Susan. Can you tell me a bit about Cathy? About what sort of person she was?"

"She's a lovely girl." She paused. Closed her eyes for a second. "Was. She was a lovely girl. She was always happy. She just had this knack, you know? Of getting people to like her. She always had friends." She stopped again and brushed away the tears forming and beginning to spill down her cheeks. Stella waited patiently for her to continue. "Please, Detective, what happened to her?"

Stella sighed. She could tell that this was going to be hard. "The investigation is ongoing at the moment. But I have to ask you – was she ever depressed?"

Susan Miller looked horrified as understanding of what Stella was asking dawned on her. "Are… are you saying she killed herself?"

"We're still trying to establish what happened."

"She wouldn't kill herself," Susan Miller said firmly, almost fiercely. "Never. Not Cathy. She loved living. She was always laughing… oh God. No. Not my Cathy." The tears were flowing freely now, and Stella crossed the room and put an arm around her in comfort.

"Susan, I promise we'll find out exactly what happened to your daughter." It was all she could say, Stella thought sadly to herself. Her job was to be unbiased, but she found herself on the verge hoping, for the sake of Susan Miller, that Cathy's death hadn't been a suicide. Anything else would be far easier for her family to deal with.

- - - - -

When Cathy's mother had left, Stella took out her phone and dialled Mac's number. It was answered almost immediately.

"Taylor."

"Cathy Miller's mother just ID'd her body."

"What did she have to say?"

"She's adamant that it couldn't have been a suicide."

"Parents very rarely know their children as well as they think they do," Mac said. "But I'm inclined to agree with her on this one."

"Have you found her shoes?"

"No. We haven't found any more evidence here. We've checked everywhere she could have possibly left or hidden them between where she was found and where the grass begins. Of course, that on it's own proves nothing, but it comes under suspicious circumstances."

"Ok. Are you heading back to the lab?"

"Yeah, we'll leave now. Have her tox results come back yet?"

"I'm just about to go and chase them up. I'll see you in quarter of an hour or so?"

"Yeah. Bye." Mac ended the call and dropped the phone into his pocket. Last night this clearing in the park had looked almost magical, with the soft yellow light from the iron lamp post illuminating the heaped snow of petals on the cherry's branches. A beautiful last sight for Cathy. Today, under the early March sky grey with clouds, it looked sad, as if lamenting the life lost there. The bright yellow tape was trailed on the ground at one side of the square it had been tied to, and a couple of petals were stuck to it by the dew's fading moisture. The tape looked far too bright and gaudy next to the petals' pallor.

Hawkes had caught the tail-end of the phone conversation and now wandered over. "Are we giving up here?" he asked.

Mac didn't like the idea that they were giving up, but nodded anyway. "For now. Let's go."

Hawkes was driving today. Mac let his eyes drift, unfocused, out of the window. As he idly watched the streets, he realised that they were passing the same place where he'd had coffee the night before. As they drove past he looked in through the window, half expecting to see the same woman sitting at the same table, still watching him. Of course, she wasn't there.

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_A/N: Thank you for reading! As I said in the last chapter, this story starts slow and builds up - despite not much happening I hope you'll bear with me through this chapter, I felt it was necessary__, considering I'm trying to write more or less to the show's style. Any opinions, feel free to let me know!_


	3. Chapter 3

Mac found Stella in the break room, half a cup of cold coffee in front of her, staring into space. She glanced up as he entered. "Coniine. It's a neurotoxin derived from poison hemlock."

"How high was the dose?"

"Death would have been within minutes."

"Coniine overdose causes a painless death. It simply stops the heart. She would have had plenty of time to lie down and wait."

Stella looked at him. "Are we running this as an investigation of a murder, or of a suicide?"

"For now, a murder."

"Based on what, exactly?"

"Her shoes."

Stella sighed. "Mac, I'm just not seeing it. We have to follow the evidence, you keep telling us that. Fine, she wasn't wearing shoes, but there's no actual evidence of foul play."

"Did you get a timeline from her mother?" Mac asked. He poured two cups of coffee from the machine and put one in front of Stella, taking her cold cup and tipping the contents down the sink. He sat across the table from her.

"Thanks. Yes I did, although it's not very definite. David Miller, Cathy's father, was at an overnight conference. Susan Miller was at a concert with a friend, she arrived home just after midnight. She assumed that Cathy was already asleep as the house was dark. It was only this morning when Cathy didn't appear that she went up to check on her and found the bed hadn't been slept in."

"So, if we're assuming Cathy left the house when it was empty, what timeframe does that give us?"

"Susan was gone between about 8pm and midnight. Sid gave the time of her death between 11pm and 11:30, so that narrows it further."

Mac suddenly paused in the act of lifting his cup.

"Mac?"

He stood up quickly, pushing his chair backwards. "I'm going to check something," he said.

"What?" she asked.

He didn't reply, walking quickly through the labs to the elevator. It seemed to take much longer than usual to get to the floor he wanted. He pushed open the double doors and looked around. "Sid?" he called.

"Over here." Sid made his way through the morgue. "Are you here about the Miller girl?"

"Actually, no, I'm not," Mac said. "I need to know if you've received any suicide cases in the last few weeks?"

Sid gave him a slightly puzzled look. "I'm sure we have. Let me check." He headed for his office, Mac following, and pulled a lever-arch file from the end of a line. "I'm an old-fashioned kind of guy," he explained in answer to Mac's questioning look. "I know we've got a computer system, but I like having a hard copy of my index system too. Ah, here we are. How many weeks back, did you say?"

"Try four."

"Ok then." He flicked through the leaves, jotting several case numbers down on a scrap of paper. "Right. Seven suicides in the last four weeks. Do you want to see their individual records?"

"Yes please."

Sid returned the folder to its place on the shelf and took down another, this one filled with photocopies of official coroners' reports. "Mind you," he said as he began searching through for the numbers matching those on the paper, "These ones I _have_ to keep in paper form. You've no idea how much storage space they take up. Beats me why we don't stick with a paper index, like my last file there, and have these only in electronic form after the actual form's been sent to the powers that be. Anyway, here we are." While he'd been talking he'd also been searching through the pages, and now he handed Mac the pile of seven double sided sheets of paper.

Mac skimmed through them, setting five aside immediately. Sid glanced at them. Three women, two men, all middle-aged. The last two held Mac's attention as he read through them thoroughly. One of them he dropped on top of the others. The final page he showed Sid. "Is she still in the morgue?"

Sid looked at the name and number. "Abigail Morse. No, her body was released for cremation four days ago. Why do you want her?"

Mac didn't answer the question straight away. "Have you completed the paperwork for Cathy Miller yet?" he asked instead.

"No, I haven't. Stella told me to hold off on it for a while. She said you don't think it's a suicide."

"Not any more, I don't."

"Well, I'm not sure Stella's entirely convinced. But you sound as if you've only just made up your mind."

"I have. Because of her." He shook the sheet of paper he was holding, drawing attention to it. "I'm suspecting this girl wasn't a suicide, either."

"Are you sure?" Sid asked doubtfully. "I mean, it looked pretty clear-cut to me."

"I'm almost sure. Who was the primary CSI on her case?"

"Uh, Danny, I think. Do you want a copy of that report?"

"No, I'll find the case file and have a look at it. Thanks for your help."

"No problem," Sid told him as he watched Mac walk away.

- - - - -

Stella entered Cathy's bedroom and placed her kit on the floor. She was here of her own accord, not having informed Mac before she left. She wasn't sure what she expected to find; she had been in so many rooms, walked through the remains of so many peoples' lives, and everyone left something different behind.

Cathy had been neat. Books on the bookcases, a pile of papers stacked on her desk, pens in a pot. Posters for Red Hot Chilli Peppers and two dolphin prints were stuck to the white walls. Clothes hung in her wardrobe. The bed made. A little pile of clothes stood on the carpet near the door, roughly folded. A plain dark green t-shirt, a pair of jeans, and a pair of navy socks. Stella bagged them, and continued to search for clues.

A notebook and biro were under the head of the bed. Stella crouched on the rug and opened the book. A diary. She skimmed through the recent entries. Just a normal girl, making notes on boys, activities, money, schoolwork. There was an entry for the last day of her life.

'_Boring day. Talked to Jess on the phone. Watched TV, and did half next week's English homework. Dad said he'd take me to the cinema, but he was working again. Mom and Libby have gone out to some music thing.'_

Stella bagged the diary too. Nothing in this room to suggest that Cathy had been anything other than a normal, happy teenager. Although she had been having doubts, Mac's idea was fast becoming the only plausible suggestion.

- - - - -

Danny was out at a scene, so Mac found Abigail Morse's file and read it while he was waiting. She had been found on a rooftop, wearing an elegant red party dress. Bare feet. COD was coniine poisoning. A small plastic film container was nearby, containing traces of the drug, and bearing only her fingerprints. She had been 18.

He looked up as Stella entered without knocking, one arm holding a box containing brown evidence envelopes secure against her hip. "I think you were right about Cathy Miller," she said without any opening preamble. "I've just had a look around her room. I don't believe she killed herself. I think she was murdered."

"I've got worse news," Mac said. He slid the file across the table to her, standing up as he did so. "I don't think Cathy's the first victim. She may not even be the second – I only caught this one because I was looking for suicide cases that matched Cathy's. This case had already been closed, so we may have missed previous victims too. But it's an exact match, same cause of death, wearing her best clothes, and no shoes."

"So we've got ourselves a serial," Stella said with a sigh. "And one who's very good at killing unnoticed."

"Unfortunately, yes." He gestured at the box she was still carrying. "What's in there?"

"What I think are the clothes Cathy changed out of into that dress. Also her diary, I thought it could possibly tell us something. I'm going to take them for processing, I'll also pull the phone records for the house and her cell, find out who she was speaking to."

She was on her way out of the room when Mac said clearly, "Shoes?"

"What?" she asked, turning back to him.

"Never mind, just something I'm thinking about. I'll catch up with you later?"

"Sure," she replied, and left him standing there, staring into space.

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_A/N: Ok, ok, I concede to my friends and reviewers. I will stop apologising for my chapters from now on. Promise. Thank you for all your lovely reviews so far!_


	4. Chapter 4

Stella's shift ended in mid afternoon. She walked out of the building and stood to the side of the entrance, leaning against the cold wall. The cars fought their way through the busy streets. A cab driver halfway through eating a sandwich as he parked in front of the labs waved her over, but she shook her head at him. He shrugged in disappointment and looked away.

Instead, she walked. It was a long way to her apartment, but she felt the need to clear her head. She had always found that thoughts fell more readily into place in her mind when walking, in time with her footsteps. The sun was shining now, and to her the city felt alive as reflective windows flashed their glances her way. She made her way through the flow of pedestrians, hiding in their shared anonymity. It always reassured her, this crush of the living, after hours spent deciphering the puzzles set by the dead.

There had been nothing useful in Cathy's diary. No unexplained trace on her clothes. But somewhere out there, somewhere in this city bursting with people, was someone who had killed Cathy, and Abigail too. Someone who didn't want to be found.

She bought coffee from a street vendor who was loudly proclaiming his wares. "A beautiful coffee for a beautiful lady!" he told her, and winked, as he served her with a flourish. She walked on, her mood suddenly lightened by the unexpected compliment.

As she walked among all of the other people on the crowded sidewalk, she wondered who they were, where they were going. If she would ever see them again. She wondered idly if they were thinking the same things about her, and if so, what they would see. Almost anywhere Don and Mac went, they could be pegged immediately for cops, but during her time in narcotics she had had to learn how to appear to fit in with everyone else, and she hoped it was a skill she hadn't yet lost entirely.

She drifted along with the flow. Not quite unnoticed.

- - - - -

"Someone said you wanted to see me, Mac?" Danny asked.

Mac rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand, hoping it would dispel the headache which was building up. There was a whole pile of case files in front of him, and his eyes ached fiercely from staring at them.

"What's up?" Danny asked again.

Mac slid Abigail's file over to him. "Do you remember her? She was one of your cases."

He took a look at it. "Yeah, yeah, I remember her. She killed herself."

"Actually, I don't think she did."

"You sure about that?"

"Yes."

Danny spread his hands. "Look, Mac, I don't want to be disagreeing with you, but it was a clear suicide. What makes you think it wasn't? And why were you looking through my closed cases, anyway?" There was a faintly accusing tone to his voice, which Mac didn't fail to pick up on.

"I think she was killed by a serial, who's making his victims look like suicides. The DOA Stella and I attended last night seemed suspicious to me, so I pulled all the recorded recent suicides to review them."

"And what made you do that?"

Mac shrugged slightly. "I'm not really sure. My scene just seemed too perfect, too well planned. I took a chance on the fact that she might not have been our killer's first victim, that they'd had practice first. It was more of a guess, I wasn't really expecting to find anything. But when I found your girl's file, it was an identical MO."

"Nothing personal then?"

"Not at all. But I'm going to officially re-open this case."

"Ok, I'll get on to her parents, let them know."

"While you're at it, go to her house and have a look around."

"What are you expecting me to find?"

"Probably nothing, Stella didn't get anything from the second victim."

Danny nodded, but didn't leave immediately. He stuck his hands into the pockets of his jeans. "You sleeping?" he asked Mac.

Mac frowned and opened his mouth to reply, but Danny had turned and left without waiting. He groaned quietly as he kneaded his closed eyes with his knuckles and looked at the stack of case files again, dates going back over a year and a half. In the last few hours he'd examined them all in detail. As far as he could tell, Abigail was indeed the second victim. As far as he could tell. At least, there were no more victims he had found with the same cause of death in the same or similar age groups.

He wondered where Stella was, then remembered that she would have left early today. He realised with a stab of shame that he hadn't talked to her properly for a while, didn't know exactly what was going on in her life. On impulse he dialled her cell phone number, but it went straight to voicemail.

He'd finished in here. He gathered up the files and re-sorted them, returning them to their archive boxes. To his surprise, as he entered the corridor and headed for his office, he saw that it was already beginning to go dark. He had been in the windowless room with the files for much longer than he'd realised. Danny would be putting off his visit to Abigail's house until tomorrow.

Down through the window taking up most of one of his office walls, he looked over the city and felt profoundly tired. He'd dedicated his life to protecting and serving his country, his city, but he couldn't prevent the deaths of innocent people. He could only follow the tentative connections, eventually catching up behind a murderer. But always having to follow.

Without knowing exactly why, he dialled Stella's cell again, but again it went straight to voicemail. He tried the phone at her apartment. It rang for what seemed like a long time, until her voicemail there cut into the line. He didn't leave a message.

He still had half an hour to go before his shift officially ended, but his head was beginning to pound so much that he could hardly think straight, and he grabbed his coat and rode the elevator down to street level. The cold evening air on his face helped. A drink was what he wanted, so, unwilling to return to the warmth of the building he'd just left, he bought a bottle of water from the café across the road and sat himself next to the draught of the open door to drink it. His phone he placed on the table, suspecting that having spoken only to Danny all afternoon, someone would undoubtedly be looking for him the moment he was no longer around.

Without any real purpose, he looked out of the open door. Absently he watched the people passing as he again dialled Stella's phone, and again his call went unanswered. On the opposite sidewalk a woman paused, her back to him, and looked up at the lab windows as the busy crowds parted around her. He looked up too, automatically picking out the darkened window of his own office. He rang Stella's apartment again, and this time let the voicemail message play through after it had finished ringing.

"Stella Bonasera, leave a message."

"Stell, it's Mac. Could you ring me when you get this, please?"

The woman walked on. Her fair hair gleamed in the gathering gloom.

* * *

_A/N: Thank you so much for the fantastic reviews! They're always incredibly appreciated. Kate x_


	5. Chapter 5

Danny threw a file in her general direction as he walked into their shared office. By luck alone, she caught it. "What d'ya make of that, Montana?" he asked.

She glanced over the content. "What about it?"

"Do you agree with my conclusion?"

"What, suicide?" She took a closer look. "Why wouldn't I?"

He threw his hands in the air. "Well, Mac seems to think the case needs reopening."

"Why?"

"He reckons she was murdered, thinks he's got a serial."

"I take it you don't agree with him."

Danny rolled his eyes. "Oh, I'm sure he's probably right. He's always got this kind of psychic sixth-sense thing about him, you know?"

"What's your problem then?" Lindsay asked.

He shrugged. "Dunno." He sat himself on the edge of her desk and clicked the nib of one of her ballpoint pens in and out. Then again. And again.

She removed the pen from his hand. "Look, you know I'd love to hear your sulk, but I'm really busy. Come back later, ok?"

"Tryin' to get rid of me, Montana?"

"At the moment, yes. Have you seen Stella around?"

"Nah, she's gone home. You'll have to phone her if it's urgent."

"I've been trying. I keep getting her voicemail."

"Will it wait 'til tomorrow?"

"I guess."

"Well, stop worrying. Are you off duty soon? I can give you a ride."

"Danny." Lindsay looked straight at him. "Go away. I'll be finished a lot sooner if you aren't here."

Danny shrugged his shoulders pretend-morosely. His pager beeped at him, and he read the message on it. "Got a scene," he told her.

She rolled her eyes. "Well, thank God for that."

- - - - -

"Hey, Dan," Flack greeted Danny as he ducked under the crime scene tape.

"Hey," Danny replied. "What've you got for me?"

Flack pointed at the girl lying on her side, turned towards the water's edge. Danny took in the blue dress, the closed eyes, the bare feet, and exhaled. "Shit. Mac was right."

"About what? That we're chasing a serial killer?"

"How'd you know that?"

"Stella told me earlier. I've already phoned Mac about this one, he should be here in a couple of minutes. I'm surprised he didn't come with you."

"I haven't seen him for a while. I think he went out somewhere."

"I'm here," Mac said as he lifted the tape and ducked under it. He took in the scene at a glance. "Thanks for calling me, Don."

"Not a problem."

He set to work immediately, and Danny joined him. As before, there appeared to be no evidence of anyone else, or that this girl had been forced to take the poison. Mac found a small plastic film capsule right above the waterline, and bagged it.

"Looks like you were right," Danny commented.

"I was hoping I wasn't."

"Lucky for us that you realised what was going on. Hopefully we'll be able to catch him before he kills again."

"Hopefully."

The black water lapped gently on the gravelled beach. Danny swung his torch around slowly, the white beam of light jumping the distances to the dark trees.

"No ID," Flack said. "Hopefully she'll be put in missing persons soon."

Mac nodded. He was examining her feet, which were again unblemished. "I think we're done here," he said. "Ok if I ride back with you, Danny?"

"Isn't your shift over now?" Flack asked.

"Go home, boss," Danny told him as Mac hesitated. "I'll get Lindsay or Hawkes to help me with this case. I can give you a ride anyway, though, if you want it."

Mac looked at both their determined faces, and decided that he was too tired to argue with them. He sighed. "Alright, alright. I'll get a cab."

"I'll see you in the morning," Flack said.

- - - - -

Mac walked along the streets. The cabs seemed to have deserted this area of the city, but he wasn't sure yet anyway where he was going. He checked his phone for messages, although he knew he'd have heard if it had rung. It still wasn't completely black yet; the sky high above the streetlamps was a deep navy. Cars were passing in quick succession, the end of the day's rush-hour.

He had been on this street before. If he thought about it, he knew he would probably be able to recall the victim, the cause of death, the killer. He chose not to think about it.

A cold wind picked up, whistling emptily as it swished between the buildings, channelled down the road he was on. He shivered and turned the collar of his black coat up against the chill. A few of last autumn's dead leaves were spun along the sidewalk ahead of him, in and out of the pools of light. A plastic shopping bag made an ugly rustling as the wind tried to pry it from where it was caught and wrapped around a length of iron railings. An empty chip packet was buffeted by the air currents surrounding the fast-moving cars.

A cab was parked at the corner, and he climbed in, grateful to be out of the biting wind. The driver asked for the address, and he hesitated, before giving Stella's. He tried phoning her again, to warn her that he was coming over to check on her. He didn't leave another message.

She wasn't in. He rang her doorbell again, and called her name, and waited, without really expecting an answer. He looked at the spare key to her apartment which he had on his keychain, wondering if he would be justified in using it.

In the end, he didn't. He turned around and left, with the feeling that the unopened door was staring at him as he retreated. He took the elevator, the steel doors sliding shut to hinder the eyes he was imagining on the back of his neck. There was a mirror set into the wall to the left of the doors, and he caught sight of himself in it, pale and exhausted, his face creased with worry. He shook his head to clear it, and looked away.

Outside the building he caught a different cab, and this time gave the driver his own apartment's address. He was driven a few blocks, until they found themselves stuck in a traffic queue. Mac looked out of his window and saw the flashing lights of squad cars and an ambulance surrounding the wreckage of two cars. As they inched past he could make out Angell issuing orders, and wondered whether he shouldn't stop to help. Even though she obviously had the situation under control, the question nagged guiltily at him as they crawled through the slow-moving lane of traffic. Through the glass there was no sound.

His apartment was dark, and very cold. He didn't switch the lights on, using the dim glow from the streetlights and other apartments filtering through the un-curtained window to find his way through his living-room. Pausing for a second in the kitchen doorway, he considered eating something, but decided he didn't care enough. A thought struck him and he turned back to where the telephone sat at the corner of his desk. He fumbled with the buttons in the dark, eventually finding the one he needed. There were no voicemail messages.

In his bedroom he changed in the dark. He left the curtains open, hoping the sunlight would wake him in the morning before the alarm clock could.

He slept uneasily.

* * *

_A/N: Glad you're all enjoying this! Thank you for the great reviews. Kate x_


	6. Chapter 6

The light woke him. Maybe. It was easier for him to pretend that it was the light. He got up slowly, head still full of sleep. It was just after dawn outside. A grey day.

He turned the kettle on, and watched it until it boiled. Made a mug of coffee and carried it through to the living room. The TV remote was in its place on the top of the television, and he switched on a news channel, with the sound turned low. The headlines scrolled along the bottom of the screen. Sad stories. He yawned, and rubbed his eyes, but by now he knew there was no point trying to sleep again, once he had woken up, however much he might want to.

It was a little before six. He felt anxious, a worry nagging and needling him.

His cell rang from his bedroom. He half walked, half ran, and pulled the phone from the pocket of his jacket hanging on the back of a chair.

- - - - -

She hadn't gone home straight away. She walked along, sipping hot coffee from the cardboard cup, and enjoying the sunshine. She glanced into the windows of shops, and decided what she'd buy if she suddenly won the lottery. Unlikely, since she didn't play.

From her pocket, her cell beeped, and she took it out and looked at the display. Low battery. She turned it off to save what remained, intending to put it on charge as soon as she got home. If anyone needed to get in contact with her she had her pager turned on, or they could ring her landline and leave a message.

As she walked, she looked around her. Her training and her job had always taught her to pick up the small details, so she noticed the vivid green of tiny plants pushing themselves up from the piled dirt between cracks in the paving slabs by the edges of buildings, which announced the arrival of spring. She watched the ungainly pigeons flying through the sky above. All the little things, which no one else seemed to see. It was as if today she was moving along at a slower pace than those around her, and that made her invisible to them, and made them irrelevant to her.

She was still carrying the coffee cup in one hand as she climbed the steps in front of her apartment building, but doubled back and tossed the empty cup into the garbage can by the edge of the road. No sense carrying it up to her place to take it down again with the rest of the trash later. She took the elevator up to her floor. It was empty in this portion of the hallway, before it bent at right angles.

Her keys had been tossed into the main compartment of her purse earlier, in an uncharacteristic lack of foresight, so she opened it fully and dug in it, rooting through the junk that always seemed to end up inside, mere days after she emptied and sorted it. Finally she felt the angular metal shapes, and grabbed them hastily before they could slip away from her again.

They turned in the lock easily, and the door opened as she pushed it. She paused in the act of stepping inside. On the floor, having obviously been pushed under the lintel, was a closed envelope, _Stella Bonasera_ handwritten on it using a black pen. It lay just on the threshold, and she crouched down, half in, half out of her apartment, to pick it up. It was unexpectedly light. As if empty.

She wasn't looking back at the hallway. She didn't see what hit her.

- - - - -

Mac pressed the button to answer the call. "Taylor."

"It's Hawkes."

"What is it?" he asked.

"Look, I'm sorry to be calling you so early." He paused. "But do you know where Stella is?"

"She's on duty now, isn't she?" A deepening feeling of unease was gripping him.

"She's meant to be, but she isn't here, and I can't get hold of her. I wondered if you'd sent her to a scene somewhere?"

"No, no, I haven't. I haven't spoken to her since before she left yesterday."

"Not at all?"

"No. I went to her place last night, she wasn't in."

"I left a couple of messages on her landline."

"So did I, telling her to call me when she got back." The implication hit him. "She hasn't been home."

Over the phone line, he could hear Hawkes's breathing rate speed up. "Do you think something's happened to her?"

"I'll be at the labs as soon as I can. Keep trying to call her."

"Mac, what do you think's happened?"

"I don't know," he said. He cut the connection and sat down heavily on the edge of his bed. He put his head in his hands. "I don't know," he whispered.

- - - - -

She was aware first of the pain in her head. A great crashing demolition ball being swung against her skull in time to her pulse beat. She was aware second that she was breathing through her nostrils because something soft was stuffed in her mouth. For a few hideous seconds she thought she wasn't getting enough air, and her throat almost locked completely as she suddenly struggled to breathe through her panic. She gagged and tried to force it out, but it didn't move. She felt her body convulse involuntarily as she struggled. Her head jerked back and she felt the sudden slam of pain, even before it connected with something solid and unmoving. Half-stunned, she lay still, muscles refusing to obey her for the moment.

After a while, she became aware that she was rising up again into something like consciousness. Her mind felt clearer this time and she could refuse to think about the thing which was gagging her. She_was_ breathing. She _was_ getting enough air.

Her eyes were closed. She felt a faint echo of surprise that it had taken her so long to realize this simple fact. Then she decided she had better open them. The lids felt as if they were glued shut, but finally she managed to prise them apart. It was dark in the room. A late-night dark. It had been light before.

She was tied to something. Tied to something, her hands behind her, so that she couldn't move. As her eyes became accustomed to the dim light seeping in from the windows, she could see furniture, and gradually began to recognise it. She was in her own apartment.

The telephone suddenly burst into life, the hash ringing unbearably loud. Had she been able to, she would have screamed as the shrill tones drilled straight into her head. It was an eternity before it stopped. She lay still in relief and closed her eyes again.

Another bell, this one even shriller. She opened her eyes with difficultly and tried to work out what it was. It rang again, for longer. Her doorbell. Someone to help her! She struggled, twisting her hands behind her desperately.

A knocking, directly on the door's wood. A voice she knew and had been longing to hear called out, his words slightly muffled by the barrier, "Stella? Stella, are you in there?"

She tried to call out, to shout, _Yes, I'm here, help me!_ but she could only manage a soft groan, far too quiet to be heard. Whatever she was tied to was too heavy to move, and she found she was bound in such a way as to prevent her kicking anything. As she fought against the ties, a glimmer of hope suddenly sprung into life inside her. Mac had a key to her door. Surely if he was worried about where she was, if he was concerned enough to knock on the door to check on her, he would use it, open the door, and find her?

She waited. She faintly heard his footsteps fade away into silence.

* * *

_A/N: Yes, I do know I'm cruel. But hopefully you're forgiving me and will carry on reading and reviewing anyway! Please? ;-) Kate x_


	7. Chapter 7

Mac cursed the cab driver silently as he dodged through early morning traffic. The speedometer was obviously fixed, as he was sure it didn't usually take this long to get to the lab driving at the speed limit. He was cursing himself, too, for having got a cab to the crime scene yesterday, thinking that it would be more logical to share the police vehicle with Danny on the way back with the evidence.

Eventually, they pulled into the cab rack at the end of the block on which the lab was situated. Mac shoved a few dollar bills at the driver and climbed out without waiting for change. He strode quickly along the sidewalk, only just avoiding people heading in the opposite direction. He didn't look at them. Right now, they didn't matter in the least to him.

"Wait," a voice suddenly called. He swung round. Standing by a signpost was the woman from the coffee shop. She was staring at him intently with those dark eyes. Her hands were thrust deep into the pockets of her black coat.

"I haven't got time," he told her, and made to move on, but she lunged forwards and grabbed his sleeve."

"Please," she said urgently. "I need to talk to you."

"Let go of me," he said, and she did. "What do you want?"

She hesitated.

"What?" he asked, more forcefully.

"I… your friend…"

"Which friend?" He narrowed his eyes in sudden suspicion.

"You know. Your friend who phoned you. The other night."

"What about her?"

She hesitated again, and he was filled with the urge to shake her. "Your name's Taylor?"

"You know it is, you heard me say it. What do you know about Stella?"

"She's called Stella Bonasera, isn't she?"

"Just tell me what you want to say, or I'll take you in for formal questioning."

Her eyes opened wide with fear. "No, don't, please."

"What do you know about Stella?"

"Where is she?"

"Why do you want to know?" he asked.

"Because…" she paused. "Don't take me in for questioning."

"Tell. Me. What. You. Know. About. Stella." Each word was clearly spaced, individually formed. He was a hairsbreadth away from arresting her. He could think of something to charge her with later.

"I don't know where she is." She faltered under the furious look in his eyes. "I didn't do anything. I swear, I didn't do anything."

He put his hand into his pocket, pulled out his cell phone.

"No, wait. I didn't do anything, but she's in danger."

"Why?"

"Because of you. Because – I can't tell you."

"You'd _better_ tell me, right now."

"I _can't_," she said desperately. "I can't. I can't. I'm sorry."

"You know what's happened to her though? If you didn't do anything, you know who did?"

"Yes…"

"Talk. Now."

"I _can't_," she said again, frantically. "I need to go."

"You aren't going anywhere."

"You don't understand," she protested. "If I tell you – if I tell you _anything_ – she might be killed. I don't know, I don't know, but I can't tell you anything."

"So why are you talking to me?" he demanded.

"So that… so that you knew. I've got to go. Please, let me go now."

Helplessly, he watched her as she turned and half walked, half ran down the street, almost pushing through groups of walkers. He let her go. Hurriedly he headed in the other direction, taking the steps in front of the lab two at a time, and shoving his way through the glass door. Hawkes met him at the top of the elevator, in front of his office.

"Mac – " he began, but was cut off immediately.

"Stella's in trouble."

"We don't know that yet. We could be jumping to conclusions."

"I know she is, for certain." He briefly related the strange conversation he'd just had. Hawkes's face became more concerned as he progressed.

"We need to find her, Mac," he said.

"I know," Mac said grimly. They entered his office. "Do you know what time she left?"

"No, I don't think I saw her to speak to all day, only in passing."

"I talked to her about 3pm. Her shift finished at 4, she probably left then."

"So she's been missing for over twelve hours."

Mac groaned, a deep noise full of pain. "She could be anywhere. We have to find her soon."

- - - - -

Stella hadn't realised she was falling asleep until she woke. She opened her eyes, but immediately screwed them half shut again as the sunrays lanced into her face. Her muscles ached and her whole body hurt from having spent all night on the unforgiving floorboards, but at least the pounding in her head had lessened.

She twisted her hands behind her, finally realising that she was tied to her chest-of-drawers. Wrists tied to one leg, ankles to the other. Whatever she was bound with, the knots were tight. She wouldn't be getting her hands untied any time soon. Time to think about this.

She forced her wrists and fingers to bend as much as they could, her fingertips exploring what was tying her up. To her surprise, what it seemed to be was – string. A length of string wrapped round and round her wrists, however, was as strong as a length of rope would be. She let herself relax, minimising the way it cut into her.

The string wasn't going to break. She had nothing to cut it with. She wouldn't be able to break it unless she was prepared to break her wrists first, and she had no intention of that, at least, not until it became a final resort. 

To her surprise, she found that she was furious. Blazingly angry with herself for being so careless, with Mac for not opening her door. But mostly with whoever had put her in this situation, whoever had tied her up in this humiliating way as to prevent herself getting free. She wasn't going to let them win. She wasn't going to wait for hours until it finally occurred to someone that it _might_ be a good idea to check her apartment, and she _definitely_ wasn't going to let her friends find her like this, absolutely helpless. Not if there was even the slightest chance that she could do something about it.

So. Think. If the legs of the chest were lifted, she'd be able to slide the loops of string off the ends. To do that, she needed to tip the chest over somehow, and prevent it from landing on her. Think. Think. She twisted her whole body over as far as she could, onto her back, ignoring the pain shooting from so many places she couldn't count them. She let herself try to scream with the pain, the noise muffled by the cloth in her mouth. Too quiet for anyone to hear. She managed to get the joint of her knee underneath the wood. She bent her knee, pushing up as hard as she could. 

The chest lifted slightly. She shouted, a roar of effort, and pushed upwards as hard as she could, and dragged her hands down, sliding her fingers under the leg, squashing them, but keeping the gap between the bottom of the leg and the floor open. She pushed, her whole body now distorted with the effort, and the edge of the flat top banged into the wall. She held it there.

Now. She dragged her hands down, fingers pulling at the loops of string. She eased them from under the wood, counting them off. One. Two. Three. Four. And the fifth, the last, and she was finally free. She had to lie back against the floor for several minutes, unable to move, hardly able to believe what she had done, tears in her eyes from the strain.

It was easier to loose her ankles. She had an arm to support the weight of the chest, too. The knots still tight, she half wriggled, half pushed her way across the floor to the desk, where, she remembered, a pair of scissors lay on the surface. She reached up with her joined hands behind her, and knocked them off, managing to pry them open, and used the blades to saw through the ties. She cut the bonds at her wrists, then her ankles, and then pulled the gag out of her mouth. It was one of her tea-towels, ripped in half, a length of packing tape over her lips which had prevented her spitting it out before. She took deep breaths, coughing and retching painfully.

The phone, now. She tried to get up again, and found she couldn't stand. She was too weak, and hurt, and shaken. That only infuriated her more, and she sat and pushed herself along the floor, like a stupid baby, she told herself. And up the few steps, somehow. But she couldn't reach the phone, so she took hold of the corner of the table it was sat on and pulled herself up, making a grab for it and knocking it off, hearing it smash into the floor. The blood rushed from her head, and her vision went black, and she followed it. A few seconds later it rang, but she didn't hear it.

* * *

_A/N: Yes, I know. But it's not as big a cliffhanger as the last chapter was... you seem to be forgiving me though. So happy that so many of you are enjoying this:-) Kate x_


	8. Chapter 8

He was already bored. It surprised him, because he had spent years watching them, before moving to the next stage. But the power it gave him was far more intoxicating that all those preceding years together.

He knew which of them would be on her own today. She always got up very early, so that wouldn't be a problem. He drove in his white car, the one without the logo on the side. He parked outside her house and rang the doorbell. She opened it on the chain, but when she saw him and what he was carrying she took the chain off and opened the door wide. Of course she did. The others had, too.

"Flower delivery for a – " he paused to read the card, although of course he already knew her name, had known it for years. "A Lucy Clarke."

"That's me," she said, slightly shyly. He winked at her.

"Well, I'm not surprised someone wants to send you flowers. I just need you to sign for them."

"Of course." She was smiling at his flattery, delivered with a charming smile.

"Can you hold them for me? I'll just get the form from my pocket." She accepted the bouquet with a smile. He put his hand into the pocket inside his jacket, and watched her face change in a heartbeat from embarrassed happiness into horror as he pulled out the gun and clicked the safety off. "Don't worry," he said in his soothing voice, still with the same charming smile. "You just do exactly what I tell you, hmm? I'm not going to hurt you."

The flowers lay on her desk as he watched her change, with trembling fingers, into the long green satin dress he'd watched her and her mother buy twelve days ago for one hundred and sixty dollars and eighty cents. He kept the gun levelled at her as she brushed the mascara her friend had given her for Christmas onto her long eyelashes. He hadn't touched anything in the house. She carried the flowers out with her into his car. The white roses complemented her brown hair and green dress perfectly, but then, he had picked them out for that purpose, and to match the pearl choker she had received from her grandmother the day before for her eighteenth birthday. 

She had never looked so beautiful.

x x x 

Three men were gathered in Mac's office. Hawkes was sitting on a corner of Mac's desk, chewing his lip nervously. Flack leant against one of the glass walls, his expression grim. Mac was pacing the floor, and neither of the other two tried to talk to him. Right now, all they could do was wait. Wait for Danny and Lindsay to arrive. Wait until Adam could pinpoint the time Stella left the building, using the CCTV tapes. They'd been waiting for too long already. 

It was Hawkes who had explained the situation to Flack. Mac had simply looked lost, full of a desperate need to do something, anything, but there was nothing he could do, and he could only continue to replay yesterday again and again, trying to think of something that should have alerted him to the fact that Stella was in trouble. Apart from her not answering her phone, of course. That should have been warning enough.

He was also thinking about the fair-haired woman, trying to find a memory of her before the coffee shop, but couldn't. He wondered briefly whether Stella might have met her, but the woman had told him that Stella was missing on account of him. She could have been lying, but she'd had the appearance of telling the truth.

So there was nothing he could do but pace the room, silently. At least that carried the illusion of actually doing something. And then, of course, there was the case which he was supposed to be working on. A lab tech had, a few minutes ago, brought in a folder of results, which he'd tried to read and had been unable to concentrate on. He'd had to pass it to Hawkes instead, who read it and told him that it contained a lack of any useful findings. Yet another dead-end situation. He felt torn, feeling guilty both for essentially putting a case on hold, when it was probable that there would be more murders, but also for wondering about this case when Stella was in danger. He tried to think what she'd do, but couldn't make up his mind.

Mac's cell phone rang, and all three of them jumped. Mac grabbed it. He tried to fight down the sudden flare of pointless hope that it would be Stella. "Taylor."

It was Adam. Of course it wasn't Stella. He tried not to feel so disappointed. The others listened to his half of the conversation. "Ok, what time? Which direction? Ok, call again when you have more." He turned to the others. "Stella left at 16:12, and headed left, which is towards her apartment. She didn't get a cab."

"Is that it?" Flack asked.

"That's it. For now."

Silence fell again. Mac resumed his pacing, despite knowing that Flack was barely restraining himself from telling him to keep still. He wished that the sun wasn't shining. There should be a storm, a flood, lightning; something to let everyone know that something terrible had happened. Not sunlight.

His phone rang again and he stopped and answered it. "Adam?" he asked.

Silence at the other end for a second. Then, "Mac?"

"Stella? Is that you?" He felt suddenly dizzy. Hawkes and Flack snapped into attention.

"Yeah." She coughed. "You going to come looking for me now?" Her voice was faint, and his temporarily lessened anxiety returned in full force.

"Are you ok? Where are you?"

"In my apartment. And no."

"In your _apartment_? But – " He stopped as the implications hit him.

"Exactly. I gave you a spare key, Taylor, so that you could fucking _use_ it."

"Oh, God." It was hard to breathe for a second, hard to know what to say, apart from the obvious. "Hang on, Stell, I'm on my way."

"Finally."

x x x 

As Flack drove the squad car recklessly though the forming traffic queues, cutting red lights with the sirens on, Mac was sure that he could feel accusing glares from both him and Hawkes, accusing thoughts drifting across to him. After all, he was the one who had been worried about Stella the day before, and not done anything about it. 

He had been right outside her door. 

This time, when they reached her landing, there was no hesitation. He'd had her key ready in his hand long before they got into the elevator, even before they left the car. He jammed it into the lock and turned it. The door opened at once.

Stella was slumped against a wall, next to the phone which was now on the floor. "I'm going to kill you, Mac," she said weakly, by way of greeting.

He knelt down on one side of her, and Hawkes on the other. "Are – are you alright?" he asked. The words sounded empty and superficial even as they left his mouth. No one bothered to reply to them. There was a lot of blood which had left dried trails down her face and neck, and had matted her hair in one place on her temple. There was more blood on her wrists. Her face was pale, and she seemed to be struggling to keep her eyes open.

"Did you call an ambulance?" Hawkes asked her. She started to shake her head, and then stopped and winced. He glanced up at Flack. "Do me a favour, call one." Flack nodded and stepped into the hallway to speak into his phone. 

Mac hung back slightly as Hawkes checked Stella out as well as he could. He didn't know what to say to her. He expected her to hate him, almost as much as he was hating himself at that moment. All he could do was watch her. Her head was tipped back against the wall, eyes closed now. "I'm sorry, Stell," he whispered.

She put out her hand, and found his, and squeezed it gently. "S'ok," she managed, with difficulty.

Flack stepped back in. "Paramedics are on their way. I called Dan and Lindsay too, let them know the panic's over before they arrived. They're on their way here now to start processing, so I'll stay and fill them in while you two ride with Stella to the hospital."

"Going to be ok, Stella," Hawkes told her. She smiled weakly in response without opening her eyes. She held tight to Mac's hand, and even when the paramedics arrived, she didn't let him go.

"C'mon, Stell," Mac whispered in her ear. "C'mon. Stay with me."

She wanted to, but she felt herself slipping away again. All she could do was hold his hand and try to let him know she'd damn well come back to him.

* * *

_A/N: So, hoped you liked it. I'm actually going away on holiday for a week tomorrow, so the next chapter won't be up before next Monday (the one after the coming one), or the very late hours of Sunday night. Happy Easter! Kate x_


	9. Chapter 9

Stella opened her eyes slowly. All her surroundings were white and cold. Stainless steel and glass. Hospital, then. She hated hospitals.

"Welcome back," a familiar voice said. She turned her head and saw Flack sitting in a chair, looking tired. Something about the scene wasn't quite right.

"Where's Mac?" she asked.

"Now, that's a nice greeting," Flack said, pretending to be offended.

She blinked, and rubbed her eyes. "Sorry," she said.

He smiled. "Don't worry, I know you're only trying to make me jealous." He put a hand gently on her shoulder as she attempted to sit up. "Take it easy for a while. How are you feeling?"

She considered the question. "Not too bad. A lot better, certainly."

His face turned grave. "You did damn well getting to the phone, let me tell you. You were tied to the legs of the chest, weren't you?"

"Yeah." She didn't feel like talking about it just yet.

He noticed, and tried to change the subject. "You'll be out of here soon, I think."

"Good." She paused, and returned to her first question. "So where _is_ Mac? At the lab?"

Flack's expression fell again. He'd hoped not to be asked this. "I think so. I'll chase him up, let him know you're expecting a visit."

"What aren't you telling me?" she asked.

"What do you mean?"

Her eyes narrowed dangerously. "Don. Cut the crap."

"Ok." He spoke quickly, wanting to get this over with. "He was here earlier. Nearly wore a hole in the floor of the waiting room before the doctor came out and told us you were going to be ok. He's been sitting with you since then, he only left less than an hour ago when we were told you'd probably wake up soon. To be honest, I've absolutely no idea where he is now."

"He didn't want to see me?" she asked, hurt in her eyes.

"I think it's more he didn't want you to see him. He's killin' himself over this whole thing. See, he went to your apartment yesterday evening when you didn't answer the phone."

"I know. I heard him bang on the door and ask if I was there."

"You did? Shit. Does he know you heard him?"

She tried to remember what she could of when she'd spoken to him over the telephone line. "Yeah. I think so."

"Are you angry with him?"

"I was. I might be later, but I'm not at the moment."

"Do you want to see him?"

"Yes."

"Ok, I'm going to go and try to get in touch with him for you. I'll be back in a few minutes, is that alright?"

"That's fine. Thank you." She smiled gratefully at him as he left the room, and she closed her eyes and waited.

x x x

Mac was running again, in his black top and sweats. It was a little before midnight. He was gasping for breath as each foot hit the concrete with a dull thud, pushing himself as fast as he could, trying to outrun the thoughts which crowded into his head every time he stopped for a rest. The ifs, the whys, the should'ves.

He increased his pace, blood thrumming in his ears, breath wheezing in and out of his chest. Every time his thoughts crawled their way back to Stella he wanted to smash something, some inanimate object he could blame, but there was nothing he had to break. He kept on.

As the ground beneath his feet began to slope upwards, he realised where he was headed, where he'd been headed all along.

In the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge he finally allowed himself to stop. He walked to the barrier at the edge and leaned against it, gulping in lungfuls of air and waiting for his heart rate to slow. He looked up.

From here, there was a beautiful view of the city. Block after block of tall buildings painted against the sky by the illuminated squares of their windows. Lights which had always brought Christmas decorations to his mind were strung along the top of the suspension cables. Car headlights shone distantly on the streets. Below him, the dark water of the East River flowed steadily.

His phone was turned off. He pulled it out and glanced at the black screen. By now someone would probably have tried to contact him, and he knew he ought to check. But in the end he just replaced it.

He didn't bother trying to justify yesterday's actions to himself. In the black mood he was in, he could see no justification. He had been worried about Stella; he should have opened her door. Simple as that. No room for _maybe_.

There was darkness and silence all around him. The night pressing down on him. And below, far below, was the darkness of the black river. _Two pennies to cross the Styx_, he thought to himself, some remote part of his brain appreciating the bitter irony. Surely even the Styx wasn't this black.

He turned himself away, pulling his gaze to the empty car lanes. With his eyes, he traced the line of the nearest suspension cable, and followed it along, and back down one of the massive pillars further along. He stopped. There was someone sitting there.

For some reason he walked over, towards the person. Something to do with the darkness, and the loneliness, and his head full of thoughts so thick as to smother him. But as he got nearer, could see properly in the artificial light the figure who was leaning against the pillar as she sat turned towards the city, eyes closed, he began to run, desperately hoping that he was wrong in what he saw.

He wasn't. The girl in the green satin dress was cold as the concrete.

x x x

Flack re-entered Stella's room. She looked up.

"Sorry," he said. "Got to go. Mac's just found our third dead girl. Well, fourth, I suppose."

"What, there was a third as well?"

"Oh yeah, you'll have missed her. Rebecca Andrews. Seventeen years old."

She sighed. "Damn."

"Yeah. Look, I'll tell Mac to come see you as soon as possible. You going to be alright on your own for a while?"

"I'll be fine. Don't worry." He turned to leave. "What's the time?" she thought to ask.

He glanced at his watch. "Quarter past midnight, give or take," he told her, and had to laugh at her look of surprise. "Go back to sleep."

It was very quiet once he'd gone. With nothing better to do she looked around her, and saw nothing interesting enough to hold her gaze. She pulled herself up into a sitting position, and looked at her wrists. They had gauze wrapped around them, and when she pressed them they felt sore. She vaguely remembered them being bloody. They must have been scraped either on the rough wood or on the sharp blades of the scissors. She found that she didn't much care. Her mind shied away from thinking about the actual attack, and around the edges there only seemed to be a hollow emptiness.

She laid her head back against the pillows, and closed her eyes in the hope that sleep would come to her, but it didn't. She opened her eyes again and stared at the white walls.

Time passed slowly. A nurse came in and tried to chat, in a voice so irritatingly cheerful that Stella replied mainly in monosyllables, wanting to throw something at her. The blinds were down over the glass of the door and the windows, but the nurse forgot to shut the door behind her as she left. Glad of the distraction of the new field of sight, Stella didn't say anything.

A few people walked up and down the linoleum floor of the hallway, mostly medical staff. A few visitors. A woman with fair hair paused and almost stepped in through the open doorway, but stopped herself.

"I'm sorry," she said. "Wrong room."

Stella smiled vaguely and waited for her to go away.

"I hope you're better soon," the woman said hurriedly, almost nervously. Stella was struck by the intensity of her dark-eyed stare, before she turned quickly and walked away much faster than she'd arrived.

* * *

_A/N: Thank you for being patient! As promised, here's the next chapter, and I hope you enjoy it. And thank you to everyone who left me reviews while I've been away, I shall reply to them in the morning! Kate x_


	10. Chapter 10

_A/N: Decided to put these at the top of the page instead from now on. I think, bar any unexpected circumstances, I can guarantee updates every two days again until the end of the story from now on. Of course, continued thanks to everyone who's been reading and reviewing! Kate x_

* * *

"Go and talk to Stella," a voice said sharply, to the accompaniment of the door banging open. Mac jumped, looking up from the printout he'd been studying intently, as Flack barged into his office.

Stella was usually the only one who would just walk in without knocking. He took a breath, and a second to collect himself. "I will. But first, I've got to – "

"No you don't. You've been saying that all night," Flack replied, clear frustration running beneath his forced conversational tone. "Right now you've run out of things to do. Go and talk to Stella."

"She won't want to see me." He wished Flack would understand. He had failed her. Betrayed her, even. It was better for both of them if he stayed out of the way right now.

Flack's tone was exasperated. "Of course she wants to see you! As I've been trying to say since midnight, and you've interrupted every time, she sent me to tell you."

Mac forgot whatever it was he'd intended to say. "…Oh."

- - - - -

She was asleep, and he sat for a while just watching her, and the way her brown curls were spread across the pillow. Her pale, quiet face looked unbearably fragile. He didn't wake her, telling himself that it was because she needed the sleep, and that waking her would therefore be unfair. Never mind that it also had the fortunate side-effect of delaying the conversation he was dreading.

At last, he got up to leave, but he paused in the act of creaking open the door to look back at her, and found that she was watching him through half-open eyelids. "Don't go," she whispered sleepily.

He returned to his chair as she rubbed her eyes and sat up. "Are you doing ok?" he asked her.

"Yeah. Flack said last night you found another body."

"On the Brooklyn Bridge. Her name was Lucy Clarke."

"What were you doing on the bridge in the middle of the night?" she asked.

"I went for a run, to clear my head. I just ended up there."

A silence fell. Mac thought he was probably the one who should break it, but he struggled to find the words. In the end, all he could find to say was, "I'm sorry."

"You're sorry?" she asked. He couldn't meet her eyes, knowing very well how inadequate those words were.

"Stell," he began, wretchedly, but she cut him off. She'd had plenty of time to think about what she wanted to say.

"Mac, I know you're sorry! But you didn't know something was wrong. You might've guessed, but you didn't know for sure. Look, the battery in my cell died, or you might've called me back to work before I got home, or something. That was my fault."

"But – "

"Just shut up a minute, will you?"

He complied, and waited while she searched for the words she wanted.

"Yeah, I was furious at you. I mean, when I could hear you shouting through the door, and then your footsteps going away down the hall…" She stopped, and swallowed, and fiercely brushed the tears from her eyes. He hung his head.

"No, look at me." She waited until he did. "Are you going to stop blaming yourself for this?"

"No.

"Well then, I think we're probably even."

"But – "

"You wouldn't fight a woman in the hospital?"

He smiled despite himself, and shook his head slightly.

"Ok, how about this. I reserve the right to bring this up as a valid point in each and every argument we ever have."

She wasn't going to give up. "Deal," he said, knowing she would never, never use this in an argument. And she knew he wasn't going to forget this, knew that he would file it away on his list of perceived personal failures, which also included Drew's brother Will, and Aiden, and Frankie, and Claire. But neither of them would ever admit these things out loud.

Mac looked at his watch. "I've got to go, Stell," he said. "My shift starts at eight."

"What time did you leave the lab? Seven? You haven't slept."

"I'll be fine. I'll see you later."

"I'm getting out of here later, in a couple of hours, so I'll be at my place, I guess."

"No. Go to my place, not yours. Stay for a couple of days."

"I'll be fine at home."

"I don't care what you think about this. Or what you want me to think that you think. I want you to stay at mine until we catch whoever did this to you. Stell, please, I just want you to be safe."

He was leaning towards her, his face pleading. And, truth to tell, she hadn't been happy at the thought of walking back into her apartment, walking through the empty rooms which would now hold an echo of – someone else – in their shadows. The motes of dust would hold the shape of him in the air. Every little noise would make her jump, heart hammering wildly out of control. She had been there before. She knew what it would be like.

So instead of protesting any more, she smiled gratefully. "Thanks."

He was trying to hide his relief. "No problem. I'll be home as early as I can."

- - - - -

Lindsay laid her head down on top of her arms which were folded on her desk. As soon as she and Danny had finally finished processing Stella's apartment, they had been put onto the serial case, so she'd ended up getting no sleep last night, and very little the preceding one. Now she was counting down until the end of her shift, knowing very well that she'd probably have to stay on even longer. After all, no one else had got any sleep either.

Footsteps entered the office, but she didn't look up, recognising them immediately as Danny's. He always walked as if he was expecting to have to start running any minute. A result of years of playing baseball, he'd told her. And growing up in his neighbourhood.

"You asleep on the job, Montana?" he asked her.

"Yes. Go away," she said, her voice coming out muffled through her sleeves.

He walked over to her and ruffled her hair. She tried to slap him away, but he'd jumped out of range. "Easy there," he joked.

She looked up. "Have you been crying?" he asked her.

"No," she said. He put out a hand and gently ran his fingertips along her cheek, just under one of her reddish eyes.

"I don't believe you." He sat down opposite her. "Bad memories?"

"Uh-huh. And Stella."

"Yeah. I know. Look, I'll go grab you a coffee, ok?"

"Thanks."

When he'd gone, she yawned and rubbed her eyes with her hands balled into fists, trying to wake herself up before Mac got back into the lab. She pulled the photos of the scene at the bridge back towards her from where she'd pushed them out of the way, and tried once again to see something she might have missed before.

She'd always hated crime scenes in public places, and this one was no exception. Some of her photos had captured parts of the crowd of voyeurs who'd been drawn to the edges of the tape to stare, and shout out comments, some pertaining to the dead girl, and some to her. It brought to mind when, in her rookie days, she'd attended negotiations with men and women who were determined to commit suicide from bridges, and people would drive past in their cars and shout for them to jump. The mixed up memories brought a hot, sick feeling of shame on behalf of those who didn't respect the dead or the about-to-die.

Her thoughts were interrupted by Danny, who returned carrying two mugs of coffee in one hand by their handles. However, what caught her attention was the bunch of wrapped red and yellow tulips he had in the other hand. She stared, mouth open in surprise.

"You got an admirer I don't know about, Montana?" he asked, an impish grin on his face.

"What?"

"Guy from a flower delivery company just comes in and asks me where I can find a Lindsay Monroe, said that someone ordered these to be sent to her anonymously."

Her face coloured. "Danny, I don't know anything about this! Are you joking?"

"Nope, dead serious."

"Umm, well, just put them down somewhere, ok? Before anyone else sees you waving them about."

"Embarrassed at all?" he teased her. Holding them in front of him like a weapon, he advanced, waving them at her face as she battered them away.

"You're going to get bits of plant all over my photos!"

He put down his hand to sweep them away, and stopped. "What the hell?"

"What?" she asked.

He pointed to one of her photos capturing the curious crowd. "Him, right there. That's the flower delivery man. He's the one who brought you these."


	11. Chapter 11

_A/N: So, here's the next chapter. This one took any number of rewriting, so I hope you think it turned out ok in the end! Do please review and let me know what you think, and, as always, thank you to everyone who has so far! Kate x_

* * *

Mac was right on time as he entered the lab. As always. Running along the old tracks of habit, he stopped himself as he realised he was heading for Stella's office, and mentally kicked himself for forgetting. Of course she wasn't there, and whose fault was that? He turned around again, back to his office, and closed the door. Through the window was a uniform grey, clouds hanging heavy in the brooding sky behind the grey buildings.

On his desk was a folder containing various copies of result printouts, and he spent a few minutes reading through them. Tox results from both Lucy and Rebecca showed high levels of coniine in their bloodstreams, unsurprisingly. There was also a note scrawled in Danny's handwriting to tell him that there were no unexpected fingerprints, odd fibres, or anything else useful on either of the two girls, or at their homes. Another note from Hawkes along the same lines about the evidence, or rather, the lack of it, from Stella's apartment.

He stepped into the corridor and strode along it, looking for someone who could give him a reason why there were no leads, but as he approached Danny and Lindsay's office, he heard raised voices coming from within. Out of sight, he paused to listen.

"Look, if you don't like them, throw them in the trash," Lindsay was almost shouting, her voice sharp on a high edge. "All you're doing is being paranoid and jealous."

"Paranoid?! Jealous?!" Danny spluttered.

"Yes! You just said, you just said you couldn't be sure!"

"Well, I am sure."

"No you aren't! And even if you were, which you're not, it could just be a coincidence."

"A coincidence?"

"Yes, you do know what that means, don't you? Having a job which requires driving around isn't illegal yet in this state."

"Lindsay, you know what I mean!"

"No, Danny, I don't. I don't know why you're so upset about this."

Danny made a loud choking noise of sheer frustration. Mac decided he'd heard enough and stepped in front of the open doorway in time to both see and hear Lindsay yell, her face flushed with rage, "Well then, go and tell Mac. I don't care what you do, ok?"

"Tell me what?" Mac asked. He was rewarded by seeing the two of them stare in horror at each other, and then at him. Lindsay put a hand up to cover her mouth, and gave Danny a ferocious glare. Mac took this as a hint as to who he was more likely to get answers from, and raised his eyebrows, waiting.

Danny pointed to a wrapped bouquet of red and yellow tulips lying on the floor next to Lindsay's desk.

"Yes," said Mac dryly. "I can see them perfectly well. Would you like to tell me what the shouting was about?" He found that he was having to work hard to keep up a stern face. There was something in this situation which threatened to tip his tightly-wound strain over into laughter.

Danny shot a desperate permission-seeking glance at Lindsay, who pointedly looked away, leaving him to struggle for words. "Ah, a man from a flower delivery company just delivered those for Detective Monroe there, and I think the same guy was one of the people watching at the scene on the bridge."

"I'm assuming you've considered the fact that being in the flower delivery business, it's not inconceivable that he just happened to be crossing the bridge earlier?" Mac asked. "Is that what you were fighting about?"

Reluctantly, Danny nodded. "I'm tellin' ya though, boss, it was the same guy. Same one she caught in the photos. I'm certain of it."

"A minute ago you admitted you couldn't be sure," Lindsay said coldly. "You either are or you aren't."

"I'm sure, ok?"

"It could just be a coincidence. Even if it's the same man, loads of people stopped to watch."

"And how many of them have since turned up here? You were on the bridge, and now this guy's sending you flowers?"

"Enough," Mac told them both. "That's enough." They fell silent, Lindsay standing behind her desk and still refusing to meet Danny's eyes, who was shifting his weight from one foot to the other, hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans. Mac was trying to decide whether or not he considered the tulips to be important when he heard an apologetic cough from behind him and turned to see Adam standing there.

"Uh…" Adam began, and trailed off almost immediately, obviously nervous about having interrupted.

"What is it?" Mac asked him impatiently.

"Trace results. From Rebecca Andrews."

"Didn't they all come up negative?" asked Mac, frowning slightly. Danny and Lindsay were also listening intently.

"New trace. Sid sent it up with apologies. It only had one of the small plastic evidence bags, and it must've fallen off the table or something, because he said someone'd moved one of those wheeled cabinets over it, and he only found it just over an hour ago."

"So what is it?"

"Swab from her hands. Found trace amounts of pollen."

"What kind of pollen?"

"Lilies. Lily pollen gets everywhere, and it sticks really well to things. But there aren't any growing in the park, well, none growing anywhere this time of year normally, it's out of season for them."

"Were there any in her house?" Mac asked Danny.

"Nope. No flowers or bits of trees or things like that anywhere."

"Adam, you might have just given us our lead," Mac told him, and he grinned happily before disappearing down the corridor again.

"Flowers," said Danny. He pointed at the tulips, still on the floor. "Now do you think they might be related?"

Lindsay huffed in irritation. But she pressed her hands down hard onto the surface of the desk, and Mac could tell that what had been hiding behind her eyes all along was fear. The enforced anger had been a shield. Danny stepped closer to her, protectively, and she pretended not to notice.

"Print them," Mac said. "Chase down where they came from. It looks like we're taking an interest in the flower delivery man after all, could be secondary transfer, if nothing else."

"You got it, boss."

"But in future, don't let me hear you two arguing about private issues when you're on the clock. Understood?"

"Sir," Danny agreed. Mac went to find Hawkes. They had a lead on the serial case, now he hoped for a lead on Stella's.

- - - - -

He'd been taking a risk, he knew, in sending the tulips. It would have been more sensible not to draw attention to himself, but the power it had given him to walk into their building had been intoxicating. Almost as intoxicating as finally letting his girls see him, letting them know who'd been looking after them, protecting them, for years of their lives.

When he'd returned to see if his little Lucy was still happy where he'd left her, he'd noticed the woman, noticed the slight shake in her voice and hands, and had felt sorry for her. If only he'd known her when she was younger, he could have looked after her too, kept her safe. Instead, he had sent her flowers. Just once, just to see what it felt like to be so close to the ones who were hunting him. Maybe he shouldn't have hand delivered them, but they wouldn't know who he was. He was safe.

He rang the doorbell, then used both hands to hold the purple irises. To match Jenny's purple dress.

She opened the door and for a second he didn't know what to do, because she was talking on her cell phone at the same time. That had never happened before, and in a moment of mixed irritation and despair, he knew that he would have to leave her behind, for today at least. She pinned the cell between her chin and her shoulder, and gestured to him to hand the flowers to her. He did, reluctantly, and passed her one of the forms to sign when she asked for it and put her hand out expectantly, the irises tucked under one arm. There was a table by the doorway, and a pen.

She passed it back carelessly after signing, still carrying on her telephone conversation, and let go of the edge just a moment too soon, so that he had to bend down and pick it up. He saw the expression on her face change slightly, but despite knowing her so well he had no time to read it. He left, frustrated.

- - - - -

"How's Stella doing?" was the first question Hawkes asked, once Mac had finally managed to track him down.

"She's doing ok," Mac replied, repeating what she had said to him. He had no idea whether it was the truth or not, but what else could he say? "She's being discharged sometime in the next few hours. I've told her to stay at my place for a couple of days."

"And she agreed?" Hawkes's expression showed concern for Stella, mixed with surprise that she'd partly dropped her fiercely independent front.

Mac smiled. "Yes she did, surprisingly. But I'm here about the note you left me."

Hawkes sighed, and Mac had the uncomfortable feeling that his previous unspoken doubts had been read. "Sorry boss, but it was the truth. Whoever attacked Stella was very careful not to leave anything at all for us. He must have worn gloves, I can't find any evidence of him at all, or none that I can prove was from him. Plenty of fibres on her clothing, but nothing unusual that couldn't have been in her apartment anyway. Mostly carpet fibres, unsurprisingly. And blood, but that was again only Stella's."

Mac frowned stubbornly, unwilling to accept it. His voice was firm, but with a faint undercurrent of desperation. "There's always something."

"No, there isn't. And this is one of those times. I'm sorry."


	12. Chapter 12

_A/N: I know that the story's been low on action for a while, I do hope you're bearing with me. Thank you for all your kind reviews, and please do feel free to add more! ;) Kate x_

* * *

The sky was still grey, dull with dead hopes.

There was nothing. Mac re-examined every shred of evidence from Stella's apartment with Hawkes dropping in every now and then to see how he was doing, a subtle hint that he was wasting his time, however much he'd like Mac to turn up something new. But eventually Mac was forced to admit that there was simply nothing to be found that could help them.

Hawkes gave a weary shrug when Mac finally gave in. "Sorry." He didn't say, _I told you so._

Mac felt the urge to punch something. It wasn't right, it was hideously wrong, that someone should be able to attack Stella, hurt her, keep her captive in her own home, and be able to escape punishment for it.

"Go home," Hawkes told him, concern in his eyes. "You're exhausted. Go and see Stella. You think she's going to prefer you staying here?"

"Can you finish up with the documentation here? I've got work in my office waiting for me," Mac said, ignoring Hawkes, who sighed, but had no time to reply as Mac strode away down the hall without waiting for an answer.

He came face to face with Stella.

"Morning," she said with a grin.

He opened his mouth, couldn't think of anything to say that she would listen to, and closed it again.

"What've you got for me today?" she asked, and then had to laugh at the expression on his face. "C'mon Mac, I've been medically cleared to return to work."

"How much did you pay the doctor?" he asked sceptically.

"Don't look so horrified. Which case do you want me on?"

He thought for a second. She wasn't going to go home, he realised. And he wouldn't be able to persuade her, all he would be able to do would be to drive her into retracting her promise to him and going back to her own apartment. And, despite the fact that she was probably no safer there than anywhere else, for his own peace of mind he wanted her at his so that he could attempt to protect her. Come to think of it, the lab, full of police officers, was probably the safest place of all.

"You're back on the serial case," he told her finally, and reluctantly. "The dead girls. And while you're at it, you can try and stop either Danny or Lindsay from becoming the next murder we have to investigate. Too much paperwork for IAB."

"That bad?" she asked, with her laughing smile which he loved to see.

"You have _no_ idea."

- - - - -

Mac and Stella both turned as Danny came jogging up the hallway. "Got a lead," he informed them breathlessly. "C'mon, Flack's picking us up now."

"What kind of lead?" Mac asked, falling quickly into step. He glanced back at Stella, who sighed, nodded, and remained where she was. One less thing for him to have to worry about.

"An address for the delivery guy. Well, the address of a company at which he may or not work, but we've got his photograph, so they should be able to help us."

"How'd we get the address?"

"Dunno. Ask Flack."

They climbed into the waiting car. "Did Danny fill you in?" Flack asked.

"No, was he meant to?"

"Yeah."

"You didn't tell me anything," Danny complained.

"You don't listen, Messer. Ok, Mac, we got a phone call from a woman, name of Beth Porter. Apparently she was talking on the phone to her daughter Jenny when the girl received a delivery of a bouquet of irises, no sender name. She dropped the delivery receipt, and when the delivery guy bent to pick it up, there was a gun inside his jacket which she saw. She told her mother, who didn't like it and phoned us."

"So where are we going? To see the girl?"

"Nah, the flower delivery company. Guy didn't leave his card, but he was wearing a jacket with the company logo on, and the girl remembered it and told the officer who went round to talk to her and her mother a few minutes ago."

"What's the name of the company?" Mac asked.

"Uh, 'Bowers of Flowers' or something stupid like that. Yeah, no kidding. Some people have no imagination."

"Yeah? So what would you name a flower shop then?" Danny challenged.

"Well, something better than that, anyway. But I've no intention of ever having anything to do with flower shops, so it doesn't matter."

"What, not even to buy your girl flowers?"

"I'll leave that soppy stuff to you and Monroe, thank you very much," Flack retorted. Danny snorted at the implied insult.

"Is this the place?" Mac asked as they drew up to the kerb.

"Yep." They got out. The brightly coloured sign shouted out "Bowers of Flowers!" to anyone who might interested, and the baskets of flower and foliage bunches did seem to be overflowing out of the shop, rather than purposely placed. Danny fingered the petals of a sickly yellow freesia, and one came off into his hand. He dropped it to the floor.

Mac led the way inside. An ivy plant escaping from the bounds of its pot grasped greedily at his sleeve as he passed it on a display rack. A gangly teenage boy was sitting behind the counter, focused on the computer. He stood up reluctantly at the point when it would be impossible for him not to notice their presence for any longer. "Can I help you?" he asked, without interest.

"Do you deliver flowers from here?" Mac asked him.

"Yeah, free within a 10 kilometre radius, if the order's for over forty dollars. Otherwise there's a five dollar delivery fee. We do same day delivery if the order's placed before three in the afternoon," he recited in a monotone. "Otherwise it'll be next day, before noon." He cast a longing glance back at the computer screen.

Mac could hear Danny trying to stifle a laugh at the boy's tone as he placed his badge and the face enlarged from Lindsay's crime scene photograph on the counter. "NYPD."

"Awesome!" The boy's face immediately lit up with interest for the first time. "Are you going to arrest him? Can I watch?"

"You know him, then?"

"Course, he works here. Uh, he's called Eric…something."

"Eric Something?" Flack asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Umm, begins with a J, I think. J… J… Jackson. Yeah, that's it. So what's he done?"

"Is he in?" Mac asked.

"Nah, he went driving somewhere. He mostly delivers stuff. Seriously, you guys are right on time though. He should be back any minute, he only had to go a couple of blocks this time. Unless he takes his lunch break early. You guys are detectives, right? You aren't in uniform."

Mac walked away from the desk and looked round the shop while Flack, chuckling, continued talking to the kid, Danny with him. He counted off tulips, irises, lilies. All here. They stood in pots, colours folding into each other, reds and purples and the dark greens of stems and leaves. The dank smell of wetness hung heavy in the air. He was more sure than ever that this man, Jackson, was the killer they had been chasing. The flowers had probably been used to lure his victims out, he thought. Or to get them to drop their guard. A man carrying a bouquet of flowers doesn't look particularly threatening.

At eye level, bunches of blood-red roses stood in holders on shelves, overblown, the edges of the bloated petals beginning to curl. White lilies in a tall pot cloyed the air with their overpowering sweetness, specks of brown decay spreading from the heart of each flower.

Danny was tapping his foot impatiently. "What's your name, kid?" he asked.

"Mike. Mike Saunders."

"Well Mike, d'y think you could call Eric, tell him to hurry up? We don't have all day."

"Yeah, ok."

"Don't tell him we're waiting for him."

Mike picked up the phone and dialled a number which he read from a sheet of paper taped to the wall beside it. He waited a few seconds. "Hey Eric, it's Mike. You got lost?" A pause. "Yeah, sorry, but we've got an urgent order, can you get back here and pick it up now?" Pause. "You try sitting in here all day. At least you _get_ a proper lunch break." Pause. "Yeah, tuna sandwich and a mars bar. And a bottle of coke."

Danny tapped his watch pointedly. Mike nodded. "Got to go, man, customer's just walked in. See ya soon." He replaced the handset. "He'll be right back."

"Once he's picked up your lunch order?" Danny asked sarcastically.

"He was in a service station already, it won't take any longer. If you guys arrest him I'll have to be here for the rest of the day, and I won't get anything to eat otherwise," Mike defended himself. "I was being undercover, you know, not getting his suspicions up. I'm going to be a cop one day."

Flack laughed. "You've got style, kid. But you're irritating as hell, so good luck with the cop part."

Mac said nothing, busy waiting in silence. No breeze came in through the open doorway, and the air was still and brooding, waiting with him.

Two rose petals dropped, and spiralled down to land, limp and livid, at his feet.


	13. Chapter 13

_A/N: I'm amazed at how many wonderful reviews you've been giving me, thank you so much as always! Do feel very free to add more, all comments are loved! :) Kate x_

* * *

Because Mac was watching, he was the one who first noticed the entrance of the man wearing a dark green jacket. He slipped in through the foliage, a plastic shopping bag clutched in one hand. "Mike, got your lunch here," he called in a low voice, dismissing Mac, Danny and Flack as customers, and therefore disregarding them. He slid past the containers of flowers without touching against any of them.

"Eric Jackson?" asked Mac.

"Yes." He looked faintly surprised. "Do I know you?" He glanced nervously towards the counter and met Danny's eyes. Recognition and realisation leapt into his face.

"NYPD," Mac said, showing his badge, but Jackson had already begun running. Mac gave chase, Danny and Flack shouting somewhere behind him and presumably following. Jackson dived towards the street, knocking pots of the clutching ivy off shelves with a series of smashes as he steadied himself against them, and kicking over one of the flower stands across the doorway behind him. The fragile, overblown red roses finally exploded apart as the jolt of it crashing against the doorframe and then the tiled floor as it fell detonated them. The flowers and plants leapt from the collapsing structure, petals trailing through the air in a chaos of colour, and the few still attached bounced as they hit the floor, disintegrating into shrapnel. Jagged wounds in ceramic pots cracked open and buckets which had held bouquets spilled water across the tiles and out of the door as they spun around. One of the tall pots engorged with lilies dominoed and the stems splintered as they spilled against the still-moving stand and were crushed. Petals ripped and discoloured, and their scent intensified in their death throes, the fallout of orange pollen settling around them.

Mac jumped over the branching metal rails, his foot landing on a bunch of pink carnations, cellophane wrapper crackling in anger at him as it tore. He kicked a potted purple orchid out of the way, the tall stem flapping miserably as it detached from its support, and crushed a yellow rose bud beneath his heel as Jackson dodged the wooden sandwich board and ran furiously down the street, between and around surprised pedestrians. Mac knocked into the board and heard it slam into the sidewalk behind him, the final shockwave of the destruction, as he ran. Jackson was still ahead, leaving footprints formed from soil.

He turned the corner, and Mac still followed, coming face to face with Jackson, who swung the carrier bag at his head. Mac instinctively threw up his arm to protect his face and the plastic wrapped itself around his wrist as the bottle of coke inside slammed into and bounced off his forearm.

He pulled his arm back, pulling Jackson's wrist with the bag handle wrapped around it along with him, and grabbed Jackson's arm, forcing him around and against the wall, helped by Flack, with Danny right behind. Flack pulled a pair of metal cuffs from his pocket and snapped them shut around Jackson's wrists. "Idiot," he told him in disgust. "Nothing says 'I'm guilty,' like running from the cops and then assaulting them."

Jackson said nothing as Flack roughly pushed him back the way they'd just come. Mike was standing in the shop doorway amongst the floral wreckage, mouth open. Soil and water and torn petals and leaves littered the ground.

"Wow," he said. "That was awesome!" Jackson shot him a dirty look, which he ignored. "Can I have my lunch back?"

Danny tied together the handles of the plastic bag which he'd picked up from the ground, and tossed it over. "Isn't that evidence?" Mac asked ruefully, but didn't stop him. He opened the back door of the car and Flack forced Jackson inside. He still hadn't spoken. There was a defeated look on his face.

"Have we got evidence to pin the murders on him?" Flack asked quietly, stepping towards Mac and making sure that no one could hear him.

"Not conclusively," Mac replied in the same tone. "But we've got him for assaulting an officer, that'll be enough to get a warrant to look round his place."

"I'm sure this is our guy."

"So'm I, now, but we need a watertight case. Hopefully we'll find evidence, and get a confession out of him. We can't have him getting off on a technicality later."

Danny wandered over to the two of them. "What'dya want us to do, boss?"

"Don, take Jackson down to the precinct," Mac ordered. "Take care of his booking. Danny, I need you to have a look round here. I'll call Stella and the two of us'll go to his place once we've got the warrant."

"Can I help?" Mike asked excitedly.

"No," Mac told him firmly. He decided not to notice Danny's wink.

- - - - -

Stella leant against one of the blank grey walls, arms folded. Mac sat on one of the chairs, pushed back slightly from the table. Eric Jackson didn't look up. He didn't say anything.

"Mr Jackson," Mac addressed him. "You're under arrest for four counts of murder in the first degree. These four girls." He placed their photographs down on the table, facing their killer, naming them as he did so. "Abigail Morse. Cathy Miller. Rebecca Andrews. Lucy Clarke. Do you have anything to say?"

He didn't.

Stella sat down next to Mac. She leaned forwards, resting her arms on the cold surface of the table. "Why?" she asked.

He looked up, met her eyes for the first time. But remained silent.

She remembered his apartment. All one big room. According to his landlord, he'd lived there for just under ten years. The bed had only occupied one corner. The walls were covered in framed photographs. Six girls, who grew up in the pictures from about ten years old. Progressing to seventeen or eighteen gradually. Four photos at the end, above the bed, much more beautifully composed and captured than their own photographs of the crime scenes, but the subject was the same.

And the flowers. Oh yes, the flowers. The whole room was a shrine to the girls he'd been watching over. Low Japanese tables, with the coloured flowers arranged in vases on their polished and dusted surfaces, and more framed photographs, and candles. Red roses for Abigail. Cherry blossom for Cathy. Lilies for Rebecca. White roses for Lucy. Two empty vases. The smell had made Stella feel sick with horror.

There were more items, arranged on stands and delicate porcelain plates. Necklaces and earrings. Small purses, the kind to be easily and often misplaced. Library cards. An old-model cell phone. Little mementoes of young lives. And four pairs of shoes. High-heeled, expensive shoes, to be worn with a ball dress, standing on display, in pride of place, next to the flowers. Trophies. Souvenirs. Memorials. A space had been cleared ready on Jenny's table. There was another girl in the pictures too, the last in line. Eileen Langford. It was the only thing Stella felt able to think about, her and Jenny. At least they'd saved two. But they should have been able to save them all.

He hadn't bothered to hide the bottle of coniine. It was in plain sight next to the bed.

"Why?" Stella asked him again. "Why were you watching them? Why did you kill them?"

"They were beautiful," he whispered. Stella sat back in her chair, waited for him to continue. "I watched them grow up. I loved watching them. I always wanted a daughter."

"So you decided to kill other peoples' daughters?" Mac asked harshly.

"I wasn't going to kill them, not at first. I watched them, saw how they lived. I know more about them than their parents do. They're just as much mine."

"So you stalked them. You became obsessed with those six girls from when they were ten."

"I was keeping them safe! I protected them. I loved them."

"You _kept them safe_?"

"They were growing up. They were going to be leaving school, and having boyfriends. I protected them from the world. Now, because of me, they'll never have to be unhappy. They'll never be hurt! They'll always be children. Isn't that a beautiful gift?" There were tears in his eyes, real tears. "Eileen and Jenny – someday they'll wish I'd been able to save them too."

"Why now?" Mac asked, his voice still level, forcibly calm. "Why not last year, or next year, or when they got to the same age?"

Jackson allowed his charming smile to form again faintly on his face. "Abby agreed with a boy that they should run away together, because her parents didn't approve of him. Nor did I. They should thank me that I was able to meet her in time. She was never spoiled."

"What about the others?"

The façade slipped slightly. The righteous smile momentarily became something more sinister, almost hungry. "When Abby died – when I watched her wear that dress – it felt – it felt _right_. I knew it was the right time for the others too. Before the same thing was in danger of happening to them. And she was so beautiful. Carrying those red roses. And she died looking at the sunset. Red sky at night. You know what they say about it. A delight. It was my gift to her."

Mac stood up, and planted his hands on the table, leaning over. His voice was deep with anger. "So you killed the others because you wanted to. Because you enjoyed killing. Don't you dare try to justify your actions." He straightened up, and Stella also pushed her chair back and stood. "We're done here," Mac told him. He held the door open for Stella to leave first, and nodded firmly to the uniformed officer who had been waiting on the other side.

He took one look back. The smile was gone, and Jackson was simply staring into space.

- - - - -

"Are you ok?" Mac asked. Stella's hands had only shaken faintly, but it was enough for him to notice.

She nodded determinedly, and swallowed. "Yeah. Stop worrying."

He smiled slightly. "You don't exactly make the process of not worrying about you easy, you know."

"Sorry." She shook her head to clear it. "There's something else bothering you too, isn't there?"

He hesitated, before deciding he'd better tell her the truth. "Stella…" He hadn't wanted to say this, but had no choice. "Whoever attacked you… there aren't any leads. We don't know who it is."

She leant back against the wall and pushed her hands through her hair. He found his eyes drawn to the gauze dressings still on her wrists. "He left _no _evidence?"

"None."

She met his eyes, and held them. "It isn't your fault, Mac. Stop blaming yourself. Really. I meant it."

Mac sighed, refusing to be drawn into a discussion which would probably head into an argument with them both tired and strained from Jackson's interrogation. "You should go home, Stell. You need to rest."

"Maybe in a while. You aren't putting me off that easily, you know." She raised her eyebrows at the look he gave her. "How long have I known you? I know exactly what you're thinking." The corners of her mouth quirked upwards into a smile, despite her attempt to remain serious.

"So what am I thinking right now?" Mac asked, laughing despite himself.

Stella opened her mouth to reply teasingly, but was interrupted by the beep of her cell phone. She pulled it quickly out of her pocket and scrolled through the text message. Her face paled. The smile vanished instantly. Fear leapt into her eyes.

"What?" Mac asked, alarmed. "What's wrong?"

She turned the display to face him. The pixels formed black letters which leered at him from the screen.

_Tell Detective Taylor to watch his back. He's next._


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N: Yes, I probably have been using too many cliffhangers lately, I apologise! As usual, thank you so much to everyone who's reviewed so far, and to people who have this story on alert too. I really do appreciate it, and, of course, it's never too late to start! :) Kate x**

* * *

Mac sat alone in his office, busy with paperwork. Stella had left, finally, a couple of hours ago. She'd taken his car, with instructions to go straight to his apartment. He'd worried for a while as to whether he should drive her there, walk her in just in case, but she'd refused, and pointed out sharply that he should be worrying about himself, not her.

There _was_ a worry nagging at his mind about the threat he'd received, but, as always, he locked it away and refused to think about it. He could take care of himself. It was only Stella he was concerned about, afraid that the threat to him was a red herring, meant to distract them both until her guard was down.

As he read through the file he'd just completed on Jackson, he sighed. They could have so easily missed what he was doing, and then it would be the deaths of six girls they would be investigating. Or six suicides filed away, and no investigation at all. A long-ago, almost forgotten, conversation with Stella rose up to the surface of his mind. They had been talking about serial killers. They had probably been chasing one at the time.

"_There're two kinds," he'd said to her. "Ones who are showing off their power, their talent, or trying to make a point to us. They're the ones we catch, because they can't help showing us who they are."_

"_And then there's the other kind."_

"_The ones who enjoy killing for the sake of it. They don't want to stop; they don't want to be caught."_

"_And they're the ones we can't always catch," she'd said quietly. "They just lurk in the shadows, and unless they do something stupid or careless we can't find them."_

"_Right."_

At this moment, he told himself, brooding would do no good. Jackson had made his careless mistakes and was off the streets now, remaining behind bars hopefully for the rest of his life. At least two girls were still alive who wouldn't be if they hadn't caught him.

He collected together the papers, ready to file officially in the morning. There was still about half an hour of daylight left as he glanced out of the window, down to the busy street below. He stopped. Stared. Wanting to be sure of what he was seeing.

A few seconds later he was jabbing the call button for the elevator several times in quick succession with his thumb. When it finally arrived he rode it down to street level agonisingly slowly, afraid that he would be too late. But when he strode at his fastest pace out through the doors, and half jogged down the steps onto the sidewalk, she was still standing there in the same spot as where he'd just seen her. She had been waiting for him.

"What do you want?" he demanded.

"Could you give me directions to Times Square, please?" she asked him, her tone light and pleasant. A tone reserved for talking to a stranger and asking them mundane questions. Her hair trapped the last of the sun and the gold light caught round her head made the rest of her seem ghostly in comparison.

"What the hell is going on?" he asked her roughly. "I haven't got the time to play these games. Who _are_ you? What do you want?"

"I'm sorry sir, you must have got me confused with someone else," she said, her voice still demurely conversational. "I just need to know how to get to Times Square."

"Fine." In frustration, Mac gave the woman clipped directions. He realised he wasn't going to get further until he did. She seemed determined not to answer questions that she didn't want to.

"Hang on, I'm not sure I follow, could you show me on this map?" From her pocket she pulled a street map of New York, the sort that were handed out free at tourist centres, with stylised picture annotations of the famous landmarks. She unfolded it, and held it open for him to look at, but her eyes were fixed on his face. There was a pleading question in their darkness.

Mac looked, and understood what she was telling him the second he saw the map's surface. He knew that it was going to be useless to get her to give him a straight answer, but he tried anyway. "Why there?" he asked suspiciously.

"Well, I've heard that Times Square is one of the unmissable attractions." He hadn't been referring to the directions she'd asked for, and it was certain that she knew that too. She took the map hastily out of his hands and refolded it untidily. "And now I must be going. Thank you very much for your help." She turned quickly and pushed her way through the crowds, almost running, not looking back. He'd bet his paycheck that she wasn't headed to Times Square.

Mac stood staring after her, still hoping that she would reappear. Then he turned and ascended slowly to his office again, his head filled with trying to work about what to do with what he had just been told. A time and a place. Just that, and no more.

He needed to know what was going on, and this could be the only chance he would have of finding out who it was who had attacked Stella. But at the same time, he was very aware that the cryptic message the fair-haired woman had written on the map for him could be a trap. Someone could be waiting for him at the meeting place she'd circled. Or, of course, this could also be just another game. He could stand there in the dark for hours, and probably no one would show up at all.

But then there was the threat which had been texted to him on Stella's cell. Maybe it was time to start taking it seriously. He knew he should probably tell someone about the woman's reappearance, had gone as far as dialling the first couple of digits of Flack's number into his office phone, and then stopped and replaced the handset. No. He'd deal with this by himself, and decide later whether to act on the woman's message. There'd be plenty of time then to tell someone else what was going on.

At his desk he stared at some empty forms he had to fill in, but the black words on the page kept moving around, dancing in and out of order, as he stared at them tiredly and tried to concentrate. It was too long since he'd last slept. He looked at the clock to see how much longer his shift would last, and found he couldn't remember what time it was due to end. Sometime soon. Heavy with exhaustion and worry, he dragged his eyes back to his desk and poised the point of his pen above the blank spaces he had to fill. The title of each empty field resonated through his head as noise, disconnected syllables, no meaning.

He blinked, and rubbed his eyes, and looked at the clock again. This time it registered that while he'd been waiting for his shift to end, it had already been over by a good half-hour. He stood up, pushed his chair back, and left.

- - - - -

At his apartment he opened the door slowly to the lit entrance hall. It looked welcoming in the soft yellow light, and with his car keys lying carelessly on the side table, instead of hanging neatly from their hook on the wall.

He stepped through, and found Stella curled into his couch, fast asleep, brown curls hanging loosely over her face. He thought about how it was the second time that day that he'd come to see her and found her sleeping, but this time the sight made him smile. Something inside him seemed to release and relax at seeing another person here, having someone to come home to, even if it was only for tonight.

Quietly, being careful not to wake her, he laid his jacket over the back of the armchair and stepped into the kitchen. He was immediately assaulted by the smell of burning, and found two pieces of carbonated toast next to his defective toaster, obviously having been pried out with a knife. He hadn't thought to warn her that taking it off the lowest setting seemed to cause the toaster to only stop when it felt like it. Maybe he should buy a new one now, in case she came round again. He hardly ever ate toast himself.

He put a kettleful of water on to boil, and walked back into the living-room while he was waiting. Stella had told him that Lindsay had packed a bag for her after processing her apartment, and he assumed that she had been referring to the small hold-all which was sitting on the floor by the end of the couch. He picked it up and carried it into the bedroom. He could sort out the couch later for him to sleep on. Maybe after he got back, or just before he left. If he went, of course. And if he came back.

Distracted by this chain of thought, he made a cup of coffee in the kitchen, and again walked back in to see Stella. But this time he stumbled, not paying attention, and slopped boiling hot liquid over his hand, and let go of his mug instinctively with the shock of the pain. He swore as it hit the pale carpet and bounced once, the brown coffee instantly pouring out and soaking into the fibres, staining them.

He had woken Stella. She sat up in surprise at having fallen asleep, and, taking in the situation at a glance, began to laugh. As he picked up the mug and stared at the stain in dismay she disappeared into the kitchen and came out with a wad of kitchen roll and the spray-bottle of cleaner.

"Get out of the way, then," she told him, and, crouching down, started cleaning it up.

"How did you know where to look?" he asked, bemused.

She sighed in mock despair. "Mac, you run the whole crime lab, but you seem to be absolutely useless at home. Your toaster's broken and could've set the place on fire, and you just looked at the carpet as if you expected it to clean itself. And, by the way, all the things in the kitchen, including the cleaning things under the sink, are lined up as if you're expecting them to be inspected at any minute. Normal people just don't _do_ that!"

He wasn't quite sure what to say.

She laughed at the confusion on his face. "Just go and get yourself another coffee. I'd like one too, as payment for saving your carpet."

He followed orders immediately. There would be plenty of time to tell her things later. For now, he could just enjoy her company, and the wonderful sensation of not being in control in the face of her usual hurricane intensity.

He turned in the doorway. "Stell?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm… glad you're here," he said awkwardly, wanting to express so much more; how she could always seem to pull him out of any depression, how much he enjoyed being around her and having someone to talk to, how heartfeltly thankful he was that she was hadn't been seriously hurt despite all the mistakes he'd made before. Also that he was grateful he wouldn't have to get a new carpet.

She gave him a smile which told him she knew everything he'd meant to say, and probably more. "I'm glad too," she said, and he knew that she meant it completely. The smile became impish. "Now, get on with the coffee!"


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N: Here's the next chapter, I do hope you like this one, as always feedback is very much loved and appreciated! Again, to everyone reviewing or who has this on alert, thank you very much. It really does encourage me! :) Kate x**

* * *

He was sitting on the edge of the couch. He knew with the rational part of his mind that he still had plenty of time to make his decision, but most of him didn't feel very rational. He glanced at his watch again. The digital face stared up at him, unchanged from the last time he'd checked it. 23:06.

He'd intended to tell Stella what was going on. He'd intended to call Flack. But each time during that evening he'd hesitated on the edge of broaching the subject, he'd shied away from it at the last instant. Perhaps he was trying to deny to himself the possibility that he could be in danger, or perhaps it was his fiercely independent streak which had managed to persuade him that he could cope with this on his own, that he wasn't weak enough to have to lay his problems in front of someone else for them to deal with.

At any rate, the decision was his responsibility alone.

It was almost certain that he would go. His curiosity alone would ensure that, he knew. He needed to find out what was going on around him. He needed answers.

He stood up. Ready to leave. He wondered for the last time whether or not he really should go and tell Stella that he was going out, if she wasn't asleep already. But he didn't want to wake her up. She'd had enough problems to deal with already, his conscience reminded him. He decided to leave her a note, and scribbled one on the back of an old bank statement lying on his desk. '_Gone to meet someone. I should be back later._' He debated about where to put it, before carrying it into the kitchen and leaving it by the kettle, where she was sure to see it.

The apartment door closed behind him with a gentle click of the lock, a deliberate sound in the empty hallway ahead.

It was cold outside, and the stars weren't visible above the fog of orange streetlamps. At first he began to jog to stay warm, but soon fell into the steady rhythm of habit. He didn't have to look at road signs or think about directions, his feet knowing only too well the route to take. Take a right turn, forward two blocks, right again, forward four blocks…

He wondered if it was a coincidence, the place the woman had circled on the map, with a date and time scribbled next to it, in a pen which was running out. Two minutes to midnight that night. He would be early, but he didn't care. He wanted to arrive first. He carried on jogging. For some reason many cars were out on the streets tonight, and the roar of engines almost drowned out his footsteps as they gusted past him, the drivers wrapped in metal cocoons of their own concerns through which they didn't notice the sole pedestrian.

In his black running clothes, he blended into the shadows. They wrapped around him closely.

- - - - -

She hadn't been asleep. She had been lying there in the dark, in his bed, just turning things over in her head, when she heard the snick of the door closing. There was a strange finality to the sound, which made her sit up and strain her ears for any sound to tell her that Mac was still in the apartment, but there was none. The digital clock glowed green, and she wondered, with a sudden flicker of anxiety, what he was doing going out at this time. She told herself she was being stupid, and made herself lie down again, waiting for him to come back.

Her eyes wouldn't stay closed. Every time she forced them shut, they seemed to spring open again of their own accord, staring at the dark walls, and the pale rectangle of the door. She kept turning beneath the covers, trying to get comfortable, trying to get shake off the restlessness which was holding her. The digits on the clock changed unbearably slowly, and again, and again. He didn't come back.

Finally she sat up, and flicked on the light. She got up, and opened the door, every movement loud in the unwelcome stillness. The silence of his absence pressed against her eardrums, and frightened her. She was aware that she was on alert, moving quickly now that she had begun to move. He wasn't on the couch where he'd said he would be sleeping, and it wasn't made up for the night. His running shoes were missing. _He's only gone for a run. You're worrying about nothing. _She wasn't convinced by herself.

She turned on the kitchen light, intending to pour herself a glass of water, and her eyes fell on the note next to the kettle. It was a stupid place to leave a note, she thought to herself, as she immediately pulled it closer to read. The word choices seemed faintly ominous and hung in her mind like black-winged bats. He hadn't just gone for a run. But he was gone.

She was worried, and beginning to feel an intensifying trace of fear. He'd been growing steadily more distant as the evening grew later, and not once had he mentioned a meeting with someone to her. But he must have known about it before, because she would have heard him answering a phone call after she had gone to bed.

But then, it was Mac. He was probably still worrying about her, but if something was worrying him he wouldn't say until he had no other solution or until she forced it out of him. And anyone would, should, be worried by receiving threats. Most people would take more care then, wouldn't go out late at night without telling someone where they were going, and what time they would be back. Most people. Not Mac.

Her cell was still in the pocket of the coat she'd worn earlier. She retrieved it, and pressed the first speed dial number. Mac's phone was turned off.

She tried the second number, and was rewarded with an almost immediate answer.

"Flack."

"Hey Don, it's Stella."

"Stella? What's up?"

"Did Mac say about meeting anyone tonight?"

"How do you mean?"

She briefly recounted what she knew, tersely. He listened in silence.

"Damn it," he said, when she'd finished. "Can't either of you stay out of trouble?"

"You think he's in trouble?" she asked, her voice tense.

"Well, you do, and you're usually right where Mac's concerned. You said he's taken his running stuff? Do you know where he might have gone?"

"Maybe. I know where he often ends up, but if he's meeting someone, that probably won't be much help."

"Stella, answer me honestly. How worried are you?"

"Very."

"I'll pick you up in five."

- - - - -

He stood with his hands on the parapet, looking down over the edge, all the long way down. A wild, faintly warm wind from the south battered his face, pulled back his hair, tugged at the cloth of his black top. Funny how much warmer it was up here than it had been on the busy streets. Perhaps the huge, invisible cloud of human loneliness which filled the city also sucked the heat away from it, a vast, brooding, endothermic organism. This road was empty, as it had been the last time he had come here, and high up.

There would be a reason why the woman had chosen this as the meeting place, why it was the line drawing of the Brooklyn Bridge she had circled in the blue ink. Everything was connected, and he needed to find the connections. That was why he was here. There were still several minutes to wait before he hoped to see her. Many-eyed buildings stared at him impassively. The stars were visible now, and the tilted fingernail sliver of a dying moon.

Did she know, he wondered, how often he ended up here by accident? It had started just after Claire died, when he had stopped sleeping properly and started running as a substitute. He would jog through the streets at night, but something seemed to pull him to the bridge every few times. He hadn't told anyone, ever, but he was sure that Stella knew, somehow. There was so much she seemed to know about him without needing to be told.

Some people came here to end everything, to give up on the hope of future hopes. Sometimes they jumped, hoping to kill themselves, and survived, but too many would end in the morgue, and then he would see them there, their dignity and humanity lost on a cold metal slab. Not for him that route, though. Even in those first dark, dreadful days, this place had been a refuge, not a way out. Up here he was away from the crush of life and death which filled the streets. He was alone, close to the descending black curtain of the sky.

He looked up from the dark water, with the chaos of the wind still blowing towards him, futilely attempting to tug him back. It was just loud enough to all but block the traffic noises altogether. A cacophony of whispers, tens of tens of voices. Voices of the city. The lost ones. He strained his ears for a voice he would recognise, and could almost believe that he heard it. He needed to believe it.

He began to speak quietly, as he had so many times before, the sounds pulled away from his mouth and tossed skyward. The words felt awkward, but he couldn't stop them as they slowly poured out of him. It was a lifeline of sorts, the only one he had left to throw, through his own actions which he could feel tightening around him. He was almost whispering. "Claire?" He waited in silence for a second. "Can you hear me, Claire?" _I need you to be able to hear me. _"I still miss you, Claire. I still need you."

_It's so high up here. I can see the whole city, laid out beneath me. I can almost see you._

He had worked it out a long time ago. He could never leave this city, never, because she _was_ this city now. They hadn't been able to find her, so they built her into the buildings, into the streets. He could hear her whispering to him in the wild wind. He could see her hair flowing in the river below him. He could see her eyes in the lights.

"I need your help now. Something's going wrong. I can feel it, closing in on me. I don't know what's happening, what I've done, but I did something to cause that to happen to Stella. I couldn't stop it, and soon someone could be coming for me." He fell silent. "I wish I could hear what you're saying."

There would be no answer, there never had been, but he waited anyway, with an overwhelming sensation of losing control. Events were moving past him too quickly, and he was powerless in the face of them. There was nothing he could do anymore. A vast black web, wrapped around him. With, somewhere in the centre, a deadly spider.

Still the warm wind tore at him, pulling at him, pushing against him. Pushing him away. He faced into it, and didn't move. It was too late for that.

The alarm he had set on his watch beeped quietly. Two minutes to midnight. He turned away from the parapet, and waited for the arrival of the figure who was walking towards him along the bridge.


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N: I really am amazed at how many people are reviewing this story and putting it on alerts and favourites! Thank you very very much! It's great to know that you're enjoying it. Hopefully you'll continue to enjoy! Kate x**

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She stopped a few feet away from him. She was wearing a black wool jumper, and the pale strands of her hair were whipped around and across her face by the wind. She didn't brush them away. She just stopped, and stared at him, framed against the metal cables, with their lights high out of reach above them both.

"Taylor," she said quietly. It could have been a greeting. Or just a statement.

He didn't bother with greetings. "Who _are_ you?" he asked.

"My name – " She hesitated, but only for an instant. "It doesn't matter anymore, I suppose, not now. My name's Zoë. Zoë Willow." Her voice was flat, and still quiet.

It meant nothing to him. "Why do you say it doesn't matter anymore?" He stepped away from the railings, and towards her.

She shook her head. A car drove past them, and in the bright beams of its headlamps he saw the tracks of tears beginning to glint on her cheeks.

"Tell me what's going on," he commanded. He was tired of her elusive evasions of questions. He had come here for answers. "Tell me, or I'm leaving."

She began to cry in earnest, a soft sobbing. "I'm sorry. Taylor, I'm so, so sorry."

"Sorry for what? What have you done?"

The tears flowed freely down her face, but she made no move to wipe them away. Her voice shook slightly as she said, "You shouldn't have come."

"Why not? You asked me to!" He was confused, and frustrated. The feeling that he'd made a hideous mistake was uncoiling in his mind, and, like the bite of fangs, it hit him how stupid he'd been not to let anyone know where he was. He didn't want to hear her confirm it, but of course he had to.

Her voice wavered slightly. "Yes, but I hoped you wouldn't. Don't you understand? I was being watched."

He still didn't understand, not entirely. "So you need me to help you?"

"No. I had to get you here." She looked straight into his eyes. Her pupils were hidden within their irises. She was afraid. Afraid of him, it seemed. Or of what she was about to say. "I was sent to betray you. And I have."

- - - - -

"Where are we going?" Flack asked as Stella climbed hurriedly into the passenger seat.

"Try the Brooklyn Bridge."

"Why there?" He pulled away from the kerb. He hadn't needed to stop the engine; Stella had been waiting impatiently on the sidewalk for him.

"It's just a feeling, and I don't know where else to look. He thinks I don't know how often he goes there." Her voice was tense, clipped.

"So what if he's meeting this mystery person somewhere else?"

"Then we're screwed. So you'd better hope he's there."

- - - - -

Mac stared at Zoë, still trying to take in what she had just told him. "Why?"

She put her hands to her forehead and groaned. "My son. He'll be killed. I can't let him be killed."

"Your son's a hostage?"

"No, but I haven't got him. He's been adopted. I don't know where he is, but I've been shown pictures of him, and he'll be killed, I've been told so. I gave him up when he was born, but it's him in the pictures." Her tone was desperate, almost pleading. "And I've been given photocopies of all his documents. His birth certificate. His records. He doesn't know about me, he's only six, but I can't let anything happen to him. You have to understand!"

"What _have_ you done?" Mac asked. A thought stuck him and he shuddered under its intensity. "What happened to Stella was your fault, wasn't it? It wasn't just that you knew about it."

She nodded, wretchedly. "Yes. I was told to find out who you were closest to, who you cared for. I was watching you before you saw me the other night, but I had to be sure. It was how you spoke to her, how you looked at her. I'm sorry about what happened to her, I am, I really am. I saw her at the hospital, but she didn't know who I was. I had to see that she was alright."

He felt sick, horrified. "You could have told me. You could have stopped all this!"

She shook her head, and kept shaking in. "No. I couldn't. I couldn't! You have to understand. It's my son!"

"So who's behind this? Who's threatening your son? Who attacked Stella?" His questioning was fast, angry. He needed to get to the centre of these tangled events, and quickly, before what little control he had left spiralled away from him.

Another car passed them, fighting through the wind, and she waited until it was too far away to be able to see them properly, before replying. "A man. I don't know what his name is."

Mac stared at her. This was all some sort of bad joke. It had to be. "You don't even _know_?"

"No," she whispered. He didn't believe her, but there was no time now. More than ever he wished he'd taken her in for questioning when she'd first spoken to him. Maybe then events would be turning out differently.

It was time to stop all this. Time to get behind what was going on, and prevent anything else happening. Decisively, he put his hand into his pocket, pulled out the cold rectangle of his cell. It was too dark to see the writing on the number pad, but he felt for the button to switch it on, his thumb hovering on it. "I'm going to call a member of my department," he told her firmly. "We'll take you and your son into protective custody until we find the man who's been blackmailing you."

Shock registered on her face, and she put a hand to her mouth. "I didn't think of that. I didn't think of that before!" Her voice was too quick, panicked.

"That doesn't matter. It's going to be sorted now," he said, doing his best to remain calm and official. But he could see that she was still afraid, and he began to feel it too, more than ever.

She shook her head, desperately. "It's too late for that now. He'll be here soon. I had to have you on the bridge for this time. I think we're both going to die here."

- - - - -

Every traffic light in the city purposely turned red as they approached. Every slow car pulled out in front of them. Stella was nervously chewing a finger joint without realising. Neither of them had said very much. Streetlamps washed their orange light over them in a staccato pattern.

Stella glanced over at Flack. His jaw was clenched. "I think there's something you aren't telling me," she said.

"Such as what?"

"Such as who Mac's gone to meet. I think you have an idea who it is."

He sighed, and tapped his fingers against the steering wheel. "Well. Maybe. But not really."

"Tell me."

"Well, when you were…" He paused, and glanced at her. The expression on her face tightened a little, and he knew she understood what he meant. "Anyway. There was this woman who spoke to Mac, basically told him that she knew what was going on but couldn't say, in case it caused something worse to happen to you."

"And you think it's the same person?"

He shrugged, his eyes fixed on the road. "Stell, I have no idea. He could be just meeting a friend for a drink in a bar."

"Do you think he is?"

"No. I think he's in trouble."

- - - - -

The black car pulled in about ten metres away. A man got out from the driver's seat. He was holding a gun, the safety off. Holding it loosely at his side for now, but it would only take a second to aim it. He took his time walking towards the two of them, positioning himself near the edge of the kerb, between them and the road. The parapet behind them. The river beneath them. The lights above them. Zoë was shaking now, fear clearly written in the darkness of her eyes.

"Drop the cell," the man said. Mac looked at him for an instant, and dropped it. It landed downwards with a sharp noise. It bounced, and flipped itself over. The screen had cracked.

"Do you know me?" the man asked.

Mac searched for features he recognised in the man's face, but found none. "No."

"My name's Jacob Haimes. You should know me."

"Why?"

"You signed the form that led to me being sent to prison."

"I sign all the forms. It's my job. But I never met you." Mac was searching for a clue, anything he could use to take control of the situation. "What did you do?"

"Ask her." He gestured at Zoë with the gun. She was shaking more and more violently. "She probably lied to you. She's good at that. After all, she got me sent to prison too."

"You hurt her?"

"Maybe. But she asked for it."

Mac suddenly understood. "You're her son's father, aren't you? You raped her."

Haimes smiled wolfishly. "Oh, maybe I beat her around a little. But I didn't rape her. Do you think I'd be out so quickly if I had?"

He remembered the whole case, suddenly. Not that it would help at all, except maybe to keep him talking. "That's right, the prosecutor couldn't prove anything apart from the assault, and Zoë wouldn't testify. But I wasn't even on your case."

The other man shrugged. "You signed off on the file. I saw it. That was enough. She's a lying bitch, and gave my son away, and both of you locked me up."

So that was it, then. Simple revenge. So often, it came down to the simplest things.

"Please don't hurt him," Zoë whispered. Mac wasn't sure who she was talking to, or about.

Jacob shot her.

She was knocked off her feet, slammed against the blunt, hard metal of the railings, and slid to the ground. A straight shot to the chest. Mac dropped down next to her, unstopped by Jacob, his hands pressed against the entrance wound, trying to stop the bleeding as the blood fountained out with her last heartbeats.

"Zoë," he said urgently. "Look at me. Come on. Come on Zoë, stay with me."

For a few seconds she struggled for air, choking on the blood bubbling in her throat and mouth.

"Zoë, it'll be ok. You'll be ok. Stay with me, Zoë. Zoë. Zoë!"

She lay still. Blood stained her fair hair. Her open eyes mirrored the dark sky as they stared upwards, unseeing. There were stars in the sky, but they wouldn't reflect. Mac took his blood-covered hands away from her, saw how the redness was still pooling around her, almost black under the bridge's lights, saw the shocked, sad look on her pale face.

Mac stood up, slowly. He wasn't going to die crouched on the floor. All of his senses were alert, seemingly more than he ever remembered. He could feel every touch of the air against the skin of his face, the solidness of the tarmac beneath the soles of his shoes, and each point of gritty contact with the rough surface as he used a hand to push himself up, muscles contracting, ligaments straining. He felt the way the blood from his heart pumped around his whole body. The momentary coolness inside him as he breathed in. There was the distant roar of the traffic, and the closer, more alive, gusting of the wind as it spun and whirled through the suspension cables, and under the space so close beneath him, dancing on the darkness of the river. The way it stroked his hair against his scalp and pressed his clothes against his body as it embraced him. Surrounded him and wrapped him in darkness, the whole world dark, the whole world waiting, drawing in a last breath.

- - - - -

"There!"

Flack jammed the brakes on and the car jolted to a stop, rubber tyres screeching against the road surfaces. "Where?"

"Over there." Stella pointed, and he saw two standing figures on the opposite side of the bridge, silhouetted against the skyline. "We're on the wrong side!"

They didn't waste time. There was none to waste.

- - - - -

For the longest second, Mac looked down at Zoë's motionless body. Her killer, and Stella's attacker, followed his gaze. The cables of the web stretched up above them. They were in the centre.

"Pity about her," said Jacob Haimes, dispassionately. "Now it's your turn."

He aimed.

"NYPD! Drop your weapon!" came a yell, and Flack and Stella were running towards them across the middle of the bridge, guns pointing at Haimes, who glanced around almost involuntarily.

Mac took advantage of his sudden confusion and leapt for him. He reached out to knock the gun out of his hand, but Haimes blocked his attack and smashed the metal barrel ferociously into his temple.

As if in slow motion, Stella saw it happen, and her mind leapt ahead of her down the whole chain of events to follow. She was powerless. She ran faster, the wind behind her now, pushing her along towards him.

Half stunned by the blow, and disorientated, Mac stumbled backwards a step, and tripped on Zoë's body. The air gave way behind him, and the parapet struck him in the small of his back, knocking his breath out of him, and adding more pain. Jacob pressed his attack and swung his arm to punch him at the top of his ribcage, used the momentum Mac's body gained to pivot him further backwards.

Dizzily, only partly realising what was happening, Mac tried to support himself, lifting the upper half of his body, braced against the parapet, upwards, away from the empty blackness behind him, towards Jacob, who violently knocked him back again, the cold blunt metal railing at his back becoming the pivot point, sliding behind and beneath him, with no friction to claw him back to safety. And he felt himself overbalance, and grabbed for a support, but there was nothing.

Nothing there at all.

Stella was still running, running desperately across the hard surface of the high bridge, trying to reach him in time.

She was too late.

She screamed his name.

Mac fell.


	17. Chapter 17

**A/N: First, wow! I am amazed beyond belief at the wonderful reviews I've been getting! Thank you so, so much! (Although a couple of you _have_ threatened to hunt me down for that cliffhanger... ;-) ) Now I have to attempt to live up to the last chapter! **

**Also, lily moonlight has convinced me that probably none of you are thinking that we're rivals or anything, but I thought I'd put this up as a disclaimer of sorts just in case, as we do seem to share the same traits of torturing characters (and readers)...! Please forgive a teenage girl a spot of paranoia! Kate x  
**

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He fell.

The air parted unwillingly beneath him as he fell through it. He felt the way it clung to his clothes, his hair, pulling them upwards as his body, his whole life, pulled him downwards.

The bridge was moving away from him very fast.

He could see the bright lights of the city, the Christmas lights of the cables. Bright lights in a dark city in a dark night.

Falling.

The sky was a deep indigo. Flecked with points of white starlight. Funny. They weren't usually visible from the city.

Faster.

The darkness was unending and there was no fixed point for him, no constant, so that the fall had lasted forever, and would last forever. The cool air rushing up past him was calming, and he could forget the pain in his head. The bridge was high above him, so high.

So far away.

There might have been a face that he could see, looking down at him, so he strained his neck to look, and his body twisted from horizontal so that when he looked down for the first time, he could see the dark East River somewhere below his feet.

He wasn't afraid. There was a numbness inside his head, and pain somewhere too, but most of all there was a euphoria of flight, even if it was a fast flight down through the dark, and a peace in the silence.

Maybe it was the East River, maybe it was the River Styx. There wasn't any difference, anymore.

The dark water caught and steadied him as he slipped through the skin of it, and closed above him with black finality.

- - - - -

She caught a glimpse of his face as he fell, white and uncomprehending. And then he was gone. Just like that.

The body of a woman lay on the ground, but she disregarded it. Flack was wrestling into a pair of handcuffs the man Mac had fought with, but that didn't matter either.

She reached the parapet, and leaned over as far as she could, but she couldn't see him. She searched for the trick, the illusion, the loophole, the logical flaw. There was always one. Nothing was ever as it seemed. Nothing _could_ be. _This_ couldn't be.

She couldn't see him. She leaned further, waiting to see him clinging to the structure. Waiting for him to surface, and swim. Waiting for gravity to reverse and for him to fall back up to her.

Because he couldn't be gone.

Not Mac.

He couldn't be.

The black river flowed impassively. The lights didn't even flicker, didn't seem to realise that they should have turned themselves out. Streetlamps, windows, stars. She hung on, and waited. She made no noise, none at all, and her eyes were dry.

This wasn't real.

Nothing was real anymore.

The warm wind whipped back her hair from her face, but she couldn't feel it. She couldn't hear anything over the roaring in her ears.

A hand was placed on her shoulder, and she turned, expecting to see Mac standing there, but he wasn't. It was Don, with tears welling in his eyes. His mouth moved, but no sound reached her.

She looked down, and saw the woman lying there, and Mac's broken cell phone. It was the woman who had almost walked into her room at the hospital. She felt no surprise. Everything was connected, after all.

Don's hand tilted her chin up, and she watched him look into her face. She seemed to be a long, long way back behind her eyes. There was a squad car parked nearby and the man who'd – she couldn't frame the thought. The man was in the back seat. Two officers in uniform were just standing there, faces blank. She didn't think of wondering when they'd arrived.

His mouth was moving again as he faced her. She watched him, just watched him, until he took both her shoulders and shook her gently. "Stella," he said, and this time she could hear him, faintly. "Stella, come with me."

She shook her head. To move, to do anything but continue waiting, was unthinkable. It would be to admit that her world had fallen apart.

"Stella," he pleaded. "Come on. You can't stay here."

She opened her mouth and tried to speak, but it was as if half of her had stopped working properly. He waited patiently. She tried again. "We need to be looking for him," she managed.

His voice was gentle. "I'm on it. I've called people. Searching's already getting started. I'm going to drive you somewhere, ok, and then I'm going to join them and take charge of it. I'll take you to Lindsay's. You aren't in a state to be out here."

"No, I need to help. I need to find him."

"Stella, listen to me." He put a hand on her arm. "You're in shock. You aren't any use out here right now." He didn't know what to say that could reach her, but he could see clearly her terrible frailty. Pale as briar-frost which crumbles at a touch. He couldn't bear to let her heart shatter, but his broke on her behalf, watching her. "I need you to go to Lindsay's for now. I'll call you the moment we know anything. Please, ok?"

She waited a moment, and then almost imperceptibly nodded her head. He let out a breath of relief.

"C'mon. We're going to get out of here."

"Let me get a cab there." Her voice was perfectly steady, and almost completely barren.

"Stell – "

"Please. Go and find him. Don't waste time. Please."

He nodded slowly, reluctant to let her go by herself with that desperate, lost look in her eyes. But even from where he stood he could feel the radiating cold of the jagged shield of ice which she'd pulled around her, keeping her upright, and he knew that he couldn't do her any good. He couldn't even see her through the frozen film of her eyes.

She felt his arm around his shoulders as he guided her back across the bridge. She looked questioningly at him as they stopped by his car.

"I'll drive you to the nearest cab stand. I need to get downriver, anyway." She nodded, and climbed in. They drove off the bridge. Two cabs were sitting in a bay just along, and she got out of the car and into one. She didn't dare to look back, knowing that she couldn't allow her shell to thaw, not just yet. She was asked for the address, but she didn't give Lindsay's. She had never intended to.

- - - - -

The door opened easily to the key. She closed it behind her, and walked through the empty rooms, again, and again. Searching for a ghost.

There were echoes of him, not many. It was too neat. Too impersonal. But she found the note that he'd left her, and his jacket over the back of the chair, and she sat on the floor with her head resting in the cold dent in the couch cushions where he'd been sitting, and she read the note which said _'I should be back later'_, and she hugged the empty jacket to her chest, and buried her face in the collar.

She waited for the telephone to ring, but it didn't. She waited for herself to wake up, but she couldn't. And she waited for him to walk in from the other room and tell her it was all a mistake, but he didn't.

There was no room for thoughts. No room for hope. Just a dark desolation. No words, even. She couldn't hold a single one. They all fell away from her. Like trying to hold a handful of water. Black water.

And the wall, the shell of spun ice which had closed in around her as she'd watched him disappear, and be absorbed by the dark city, finally shattered into millions of tiny splinters, each so terribly sharp, so terribly piercing, and she at last let the ice in her eyes melt into tears, hugging close that jacket, digging her fingernails so hard into her forearms that they left behind perfect red crescents. And she cried, forcing out splintered tears which ripped at her heart, shards of them tearing through her chest with each sobbing breath and glacially cauterising the lacerated wounds they made as they did so, crying away her air so that she almost choked each time she breathed in and out, but she didn't really care anymore if she was breathing or not.

- - - - -

Time passed. She didn't notice as its shadowy currents flowed around and onwards from her, oh-so-terribly gently. It would not disturb her, would not comfort her, would not pity her.

- - - - -

She was drowning, now that all her tears were gone. The pain they sliced into her had been preferable to this. The blackness of grief and despair pressed down on her skin, seeping through her pores and slithering into her veins. But her life had made her a survivor, and now made her cling on against her will until a thought came, just one. She caught hold of it, and it pulled her up through her own shadows. Not hope, not even a wish. Just a certainty of what she knew she would do.

Little by little, her heart welded the shredded ribbons of itself together, tempering, becoming steel. She was going to find him. Nothing else mattered.

She was going to find him.


	18. Chapter 18

**A/N: Ok, this is up much later than I'd intended, sorry. However, it is long, so I hope you can forgive me. As always, any comments are welcome, and thank you to people reviewing! I still can't quite believe how many of you there are! Kate x  
**

**Incidental lyrics in the 3rd-ish paragraphs aren't mine, they belong to Rascal Flatts, Coldplay, and Death Cab for Cutie.**

* * *

The huge space his absence had left was squeezing the air out of her now. She took a deep breath, and another, taking back control of her body and mind. Flint in her eyes, sparks of determination seeded and growing in her mind, beginning to bring it back from the numbness of despair. The thought she had clung to still reverberated loudly.

She got up, moving constantly so that her thoughts and her grief could only trail out behind her, a black veil which she couldn't let catch up with her again, and pulled some dull, practical clothes from her bag, changing out of the memories she had been wearing. She pulled her hair back fiercely behind her head so that it tugged at her scalp, and tied it tightly. Then she left.

The police radio told her where the control point was, and she drove towards it. The car was too quiet, too well insulated from the outside world, and right now she couldn't stand it. Not more loneliness and emptiness. She turned the radio on, up loud, and strains of country music poured out, far too bright, far too happy. _"Aaaall that I want is to beeee – Where you aaare…" _

She switched the station over. This song, too, mocked her. _"It could be worse – I could be alone – I could be locked in here on my own…" _

Again she tried to change the station. Everywhere tonight was playing music, it seemed. Songs that had no right to be played. _"If there's no one beside you when your soul embarks – Then I'll fol-low you into the dark…"_

Fiercely, she un-tuned the radio, blinking back tears which threatened to seep out from under her eyelids. The crackle and howl of static filled the car and pierced through her eardrums, forcing out the thoughts which had once again started to creep up on her. She concentrated on the street signs, and the road, conscious all the time of the absence of a presence in the seat next to her, an event horizon she was afraid to look at lest her mind cross it. It seemed the longest way she had ever driven.

The control point was just outside a café on the waterfront, where all the tables and chairs had been moved outside into no semblance of order, thrown where they were convenient. The owner was probably having a field day, selling everyone coffee, judging from the number of cups sitting abandoned on surfaces. Flack appeared to have taken charge. He was standing in the centre of the activity, seemingly talking to three people at once, as well as speaking intermittently into his radio as it called for his attention. She approached him, and waited for a second until he looked up from a rapid conversation, and met her eyes. His own widened and he brushed off the man he'd been talking to, shouldering his way over to her.

"You shouldn't be here," he told her roughly.

She hadn't expected any more of a greeting than that, and already knew what she would say. "You need everyone you can get to help. I'm not leaving."

"Stella…" he began wearily.

She folded her arms. "Don, I'm not leaving."

He looked at her, pale and still as steel, and knew that she was speaking truthfully. He wouldn't be winning another argument with her tonight. Her eyes were red, and there was a terrible deep grief at the back of them, but at the moment she was forcefully strong, and focused. She had a job to do, and she wouldn't stop until it was done.

"Ok." He pulled a map from his pocket, and marked an area with a pen. "Search that stretch on foot. Have you got a good flashlight?"

"In the car."

"Cell phone? Radio?"

"Both right here."

"Good. Stay in touch." His voice was brisk and businesslike, as was hers. Neither of them were willing to let their façades slip. She nodded, and turned away. He stopped her. "Stella."

"What is it?"

He motioned for her to step back a little, out of the press of uniformed bodies all with the same faces, and with eyes which turned to her, full of devastating pity. He lowered his voice slightly, and softened the tone. "Just so you know. Right now this is a search-and-rescue. But come morning, or even before that, it'll be regarded to body recovery."

"I understand." Her tone didn't soften, but hardened instead. Her eyes seemed hard enough to cut diamond. She took a zip-up NYPD jacket which someone offered to her, without looking at the donor's face, and climbed back into the black car. It was Mac's. She was still borrowing it.

Flack watched her drive away, and kicked at an empty soda can lying on the ground with far more force than was necessary. It skidded across the concrete with a grating sound and slid beneath the safety railings. There was only a quiet splash. Not really noticeable, except to him.

- - - - -

It was an area of wasteland which Stella had been given to search, full of abandoned buildings, and loading-slips which ran down into the river. She walked and clambered along the water's edge, shining Mac's searchlight into every corner, every crevice. Shone it over the surface of the river, rippling blackly.

The ground was slimy and treacherous. Her feet slid under her, and she caught her fall with the handle of the flashlight jammed against the mud. The momentary shock jolted her mind awake, properly awake, as she hadn't been since that heart-searing second on the bridge.

She wasn't ready to give up yet. She had realised that in his apartment, on the floor, and it was what was driving her now. In a few hours the feverish urgency of the search would be ended, and they _would_ be looking for a body, because by then anyone would be dead of hypothermia even if they had survived the fall. But in the meantime, in this short window, she wasn't giving up on him. He had come for her, before. Now it was her turn to do the finding.

"Mac!" she shouted. "Mac! Can you hear me? Mac Taylor!" Her voice was loud and hoarse in the silence of the dark hours before dawn was even hinted at. It echoed off the flat edge of an abandoned building and returned to her, mockingly.

It was a long area, and rough walking. More carefully now, she slipped her feet along the mud and the slime-coated concrete and tarmac along the very edge of the water, shining the flashlight around her, throwing out circles of light. The beam held objects transfixed in its path for her to see. There was litter everywhere, and the light reflected off the cut glass of bottles, garish foil wrappers, duller soda and beer cans. Her eyes played tricks on her, telling her that she had seen a dark shape floating in the current, or a pale hand at the water's edge. Each time, when she stared with a fast beating heart, what she had taken to be Mac would seamlessly morph into another piece of debris, or simply dissolve into the surroundings.

From time to time the radio squawked a burst of static, and every time she grabbed it immediately with shaking fingers to hear its message, but it was never the news she was hoping for. It was routine check-ins, mostly, and reports that a section of the river had been cleared being broadcast to all the searchers. She didn't know how many there were.

As time wore on, she began to notice a change in the tone of the reports. "Detective Taylor not found," began, gradually, to be replaced with, "No body recovered."

She finished her sector, and moved to the next one downriver. Her earlier devastating grief had been veneered with as thick a layer of tempered, steely determination as she had been able to build. She was going to find him, and that was the only thing that mattered. If he was alive or dead, she was going to find him. But she couldn't bring herself to think of him not being alive. The acid of the alternative burrowed into her, corroding and burning.

- - - - -

The mood at the control point was as bleak as Stella's. The frenetic activity had died down, and most people had dispersed. At that moment, no one was talking. Danny had just returned from one of the motor boats which had travelled up and down the river between the bridge and the docks. They hadn't found Mac. Flack was sitting on top of one of the tables, feet resting on the seat of a chair, an untouched mug of coffee next to him. His head was in his hands.

"Hey," Danny greeted him tiredly. There was another table conveniently placed opposite, and he hoisted himself up onto it. He could see the café owner giving him an evil look through the window, but he took no notice.

Flack looked up. "Hey."

"You saw it happen, didn't you?" Danny watched Flack's face tighten. Neither of them were in a conversational mood right now. Words were leaden, and best kept to a minimum.

"Yeah."

"How's Stella holding up?"

Flack shook his head, his voice despairing. "At the moment, God only knows. She went to pieces up there, can't say I can blame her. For a second, I thought she was about to follow him." He paused, but Danny couldn't think of anything to say, and so continued. "Finally I get her to leave, and then she shows up here, and suddenly she seems to have pulled herself together again, and the grounds I managed to get her to go away on before are gone. Don't know what Lindsay said to her."

"She didn't go to Lindsay's. We both came straight here, you might have missed seeing her cos she went with Hawkes, he was just setting off."

"Where _did_ she go, then?"

"Best guess, to Mac's. It's where she's staying at the moment. Her place hasn't been officially released yet." He looked intently at his friend. "You don't look at all surprised."

"I'm not." He sounded tired, and drained. "I expected her to. I wouldn't have been able to stop her."

Danny pulled off his glasses and raked his hand through his hair. "Level with me here, Don. You expecting we're gonna find him alive?"

Flack turned to face him properly, and his arm knocked against the cold ceramic coffee mug. It teetered on the edge of the table for a second and his hand shot out to catch it, but missed. It spun slightly in midair and globules of liquid spilled out, spattering on the ground. The white ceramic hit the concrete slabs, and shattered. The few other people glanced up for a second at the crash, and the café owner muttered darkly. Flack met Danny's eyes, and Danny almost flinched at the weight of despair and grief locked in his. "No."

- - - - -

She was cold. Shivering miserably, and exhausted. The water had come in through her shoes countless times, and there was dank mud plastered to her clothing where she had slipped and fallen. Miscellaneous shapes still gleamed deceptively at the edges of the flashlight beam. There was still no news. And still poisonous thoughts kept attacking her, her mind a mire in which she couldn't get clear as they secreted themselves in corners, sticking to her as she unwillingly brushed past them, now all jumbled up inside her.

Only twenty four hours. That was all the time it had taken for a complete reversal for both of them. He had been scared for her, guilty about her. And now she was searching for him, wondering why she hadn't gone after him sooner. Only five minutes earlier would have made all the difference. A minute. Thirty seconds, even. All this, for the sake of thirty seconds. That would have been enough time to save him.

Over and over, her mind played her the picture of Mac tilting, the precise split second where he passed the pivot point. Thirty seconds.

Her cell rang and she answered it, perched clumsily on and against a mound of misshapen concrete blocks, probably dumped illegally from a demolition site.

"Yeah." She couldn't raise the energy for anything else. She had checked the caller ID, and he would have launched straight in if there had been any news.

"It's Don. I'm just checking in on you."

"Ok."

"How far along are you?"

She cleared her throat. "Fifty metres or so left in this section."

"Ok." There was silence down the line for a second. "Stell, a lot of the uniforms are being recalled once they've finished the section they're searching."

"Oh."

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah."

"Call me when you finish the section."

"Yeah." She ended the call.

For a moment she stood still, looking at the cell and the square block of light which was the screen. There was blood on it, and she found the gash on the palm of her left hand, a deep scrape. She didn't do anything about it, or try and remember when she'd received it. She replaced her cell, and she continued, slowly. She couldn't help but walk slowly over the uneven ground, but she didn't care too much, not wanting to come to the end of another section, another failure. She kept swinging the searchlight around her, not leaving any shadowed place to its shadows.

There was a place in the river up ahead where a tangled jetty of items, unintentionally made, stuck out into the current. Against some unseen support were caught dead branches, empty bottles, polystyrene chunks, shredded plastic bags, all the floating detritus from the city. Thrown away rubbish.

Stella let the light play over the dam. The white beam was reflected from the junk, which glistened with the wetness of the water. She ran the torch light back again along its length, and this time it seemed to snag against a different whiteness to that of the artificial plastics. The beam shook as she fought to hold it steady in her hands, as she stared. Hardly daring to hope.

She didn't breathe, waiting for what she saw to resolve itself into something else, something different. It didn't. The distant features remained the same, the whiteness of skin still catching the light. What could be a face. What could be a black-clothed body lying motionless, caught against the barrier. It wasn't entirely in the water, a castaway washed up against the false shore. But the apparent castaway could well be false too. It was too indistinct for her to quite tell.

She didn't think. She couldn't think.

"Mac!" she shouted, drawing all the air she could into her lungs before emptying them with the noise. There was no responding movement.

She kept staring. But again her eyes kept playing tricks on her in the unnatural harsh light. She couldn't be sure. It was too far away, and too many jagged shadows were cast by other objects over what she couldn't be sure was him.

There were still no clear thoughts, only the absolute, desperate, fierce, resolute energy which was consuming her. It could be Mac. It _had_ to be Mac. She had to get to him. There was no time for waiting.

All her training was trying to tell her to call for backup, to call for help, to wait. She didn't even hear it. Only one course of action appeared to her, the least safe, the least practical, the least sensible, but the quickest. Mac was there. She was sure it was Mac. It had to be him, because she had sworn to find him, and now she had to get to him. And nothing else mattered at this instant, nothing else even existed.

She jammed the flashlight into the mud, so that it cast its steady beam ahead of her, a path playing over the rippled surface of the current. All she had to do now was follow it.

_Please, let it be him. Let him still be alive._

Without hesitation, she walked straight into the black water of the East River.


	19. Chapter 19

**A/N: Well, this was going to be the last chapter, but now it isn't - a little more to go. I do hope everyone's still enjoying this story, judging from the reviews you are, and they're wonderful. So thank you! They make me very happy :) Please do feel free to add more! Kate x**

* * *

The mud beneath her wasn't solid. She couldn't see it, but she felt it pull her downwards, grasping at her feet. Her shoes sank into it, and she tugged them out, the greedy squelching sound audible as the water quickly filled the holes they left. She took another step, and again she sank, again stumbling forwards quickly with the cold black water lapping already around her shins. Her feet were heavy to lift, and she knew that was the fault of her shoes, easy targets for the clinging slime, but she wasn't going to wait to take them off.

The bank fell away steeply, so that with her next step the water was above her knees, and then up to her waist. She was going to have to swim.

She leant forwards as she stepped, and lifted her arms up in front of her, and then there was no footing at all and she gasped with the shock of the freezing water as it pulled her to itself. It was so cold that it took away her breath at first, as it flowed around her floating body, with only her head above the surface. She could feel the submerged ends of her hair stick to her neck and lower face, the water encroaching over the whole of her.

Her waterlogged clothes weighed her down. She had always hated swimming, and there was never usually much call for it in the city. The current easily took her and tugged her downstream, into the tangled dam. It pulled at her from beneath, and she grabbed for a handhold on the jetty, but it would clearly be unable to support her if she tried to climb onto it. For a second she hung on, fighting to keep her body from sliding underneath it. She wouldn't be able to get out again.

The beam of the searchlight played across the river's surface, a few arm-spans from her, shifting triangles of white on the black as the wind and current ruffled the surface into small, ever-changing waves. From her position in the water she couldn't see the end of it. Only the path. She began to move, keeping one hand clutched to odd items on the jetty for support, moving it along in jerks as she kicked with her legs.

It was an odd sort of motion she made forwards. Pull along in a half-stroke with her arm, kick with her legs, while she reached ahead with her other hand above the water for the next hold, only able to see shapes dimly. Still the river tried to pull her downwards. The fingers of the current stroked along her stomach, circling her legs. They made her think of weeds, long feathery strands which could tangle her. She kicked violently to be free of them.

Not far to go now, she told herself. Not far to go.

Her mind was siding with the darkness, playing tricks on her. Every now and then a larger ripple in the flow formed itself into a wave, within which she could see the humped back of a shark, or some other monster. Each time she froze as it sped towards her, and it washed around her shoulders. Only water, only ever water.

She was shivering, from the cold, or from fear. She was tiring quickly, gasping for each breath. The river tugged at her. It sent waves of near-panic swelling into her mind, which she fought down until they ebbed away, but couldn't prevent herself from continually jerking her head to surprise anything creeping up on her through the black water, couldn't prevent herself jerking her legs to kick away the mind-weeds which clutched at her.

_Not far to go. Not far. Not much longer._

At last the water lit around her as she kicked herself into the white path of the torch beam. In its light her hand was pale as a corpse's as, with each stroke, it gloomed up through the layers of the dark shroud she swam through. She looked ahead, through the long shadow where she blocked the light.

He was visible at last, caught against the pile, looking like just another worn-out thing that had been thrown away. But not to her. She was cold but it didn't matter, gasping for breath but it didn't matter. Everything that mattered to her, everything, was bound up in the man lying in his sodden black clothes, washed up onto the mound of floating rubbish, his pale, white-marble face turned skywards.

The sight of him gave her strength, and banished her fear from her mind. She pulled and kicked herself forward, and the current intensified, clinging, clutching. She fought against it, but at the same time barely noticing it. It wouldn't be able to stop her. Her eyes blazed, and the coldness and blackness couldn't extinguish them.

She reached him at last. He was half out of the water, the jetty here dipping low beneath the surface. Unwillingly the current pushed her onto the slope, and she grabbed for holds, and pulled herself up next to him, cautiously, although this section seemed much more solid than most of what she had just passed. Her heavy clothes still pulled her back, and the buoyancy of the river was almost a temptation. It was still loath to relinquish her until she was out of its grasp altogether.

He was so still, so pale. "Mac," she whispered. He was so cold. She couldn't see if he was breathing or not.

_Please, Mac, be alive. I'm not staying here without you._

She pressed her fingers against his neck, to the artery where the blood would be straight from his heart. But she couldn't be sure, couldn't feel properly through her numb fingers. She couldn't feel anything.

She laid her ear against his chest. Straining to hear, holding her breath.

And there it was. So faintly. But it was there. His life. His heart. Just a little, but a little was enough.

"Mac," she called to him, cupping his face in her hands. "Mac," she said, louder, pleadingly. "Mac. Come back to me." She didn't dare to move him, not knowing if or how badly he was injured, not even though the river was still lapping at the near side of his body. Still wanting him for itself. But she was stronger than the river, and burning bright with a fierce hope. She pulled off her coat and laid it over him, wrapping it in around him, not even caring about the loss of it.

For the first time, the thought smashed into her that no help was coming, no one knew that it was needed. Her fingers bloodless and almost unbending, she fumbled her cell from her sodden pocket. The screen was blank. She knew that she hadn't turned it off, but she jabbed at the power button anyway. The screen stayed blank.

Horrified, she pulled the radio from the pocket of the coat, trying not to disturb Mac. It was slick with wetness and water dripped from the sides and from the speaker mesh.

She shook it, until no more droplets came spraying from it, and tried to call. Nothing happened. A wave of impotent rage crashed over her, at the radio for not working, for those who had given up the search already, at whoever had been out in the boat and crawled down the river earlier, and hadn't spotted Mac. At herself for not calling for assistance when she had still been on the river bank. The fear of false hope had overridden common sense.

"Help!" she shouted, the anger lending strength to her voice. "Someone! Help!" She took the radio and hit it against her leg, and swore at it, in the age-old faith that this sort of treatment would cause technology to work better rather than worse. She tried again. Still nothing.

"Come on, come on," she muttered desperately. And this time, at last, she was rewarded by a buzz of static and then, finally, a connection.

"Flack." Even over the impersonal radio his voice sounded heavy, drained.

The words poured out of her, as if telling someone would help to confirm it to herself. "It's Stella. I've found him!"

"You've found him?" He sounded as if he could hardly believe it.

"Yes! He needs an ambulance, right now."

"Where?" There was no time for further questioning. That could all come later.

"Near where I was when you called me."

"We'll be there. I'm calling an ambulance now."

She laid down the radio next to her. "You hear that, Mac?" she asked. "Rescue's on their way. It's going to be alright. You're going to be alright." She was trying to reassure him, reassure herself. He _had_ to be ok. She was cold with her bare arms, but not as cold as Mac was. She laid herself next to him, and held him close, wrapping the coat tight around him, trying to pass some of her warmth to him. She whispered his name into his ear again, and again, calling him back to her.

His heart beat so slowly. The rising and falling of his chest could barely be noticed.

She shared her heartbeat with him.

The two of them were still pinned by the light from Mac's searchlight lying in the mud by the water, and from within that tiny circle of brightness the night outside was impossibly black, and even inside it, most of the space was filled by clear-cut black shadows.

A breeze picked up, cold enough to cause her to shiver again.

"Stella! Where are you?" The shout she had been staining her ears to hear came from somewhere on the banks and she sat up, but not daring to stand, mistrustful of the unsteady footing.

"Over here!" she called, at the top of her voice. "This way!"

There were bobbing points of light on the bank upstream from her, which gradually came closer. "Stella!" the call came again, and again she replied, waving her arms above her head. Suddenly the white beams of light picked her out, and she had to shield her eyes with her hand.

"Ok Stell, we see you," called Flack. "Is that thing safe to walk on?"

"No," she shouted back. "I think you'd go through it."

"What's Mac's condition?"

"He's breathing, but he's unconscious," Stella called. She stuck to the facts, desperately afraid for him, but not daring to put it into words. In case fate heard her. "I can't tell if he's hurt badly or not. How soon can you get us out of here?"

There was a few moments when she could hear the people on the bank talking, but they were too far away for her to make out the words.

"EMS are already on their way," Flack shouted over to her after a second. "Boat's coming now from upstream to get the two of you to the shore. Just hold on a few more minutes."

Almost giddy with frantic relief, Stella turned again to Mac. She laid her hand gently against his cold cheek. "Come on," she whispered. "Come back to me."

Slowly, gradually, his eyes half-opened. She crouched down next to him, and he smiled faintly at her.

"Mac," she whispered. "Mac. Oh God."

"Stell…" he murmured.

"Shh," she told him. "It's ok. Don't talk." She found his hand, and held it tightly. "You just hold on, ok? Hold on for me."

Mac's eyes closed. She gently touched his cheek and they opened again. "Don't go," he whispered.

"I'm not going anywhere," she told him firmly. "So you'd better not leave me either."

He didn't reply, and his eyes fell closed again. She kissed his forehead. "I'm not leaving you," she whispered. "Never."

She squeezed his hand, and felt the faint pressure of a response. At last she let the flicker of hope which had smouldered deep inside her all this time burst up into a flame, blinding, blazing with brilliance. And she realised that she could see, that the darkness was lifting around her, must have been for some time. Focused on Mac, she hadn't even noticed.

Somewhere to the East, the night was at last coming to an end. Dawn kindled, pale streaks of fire flaring in an ardour of ecstasy, pushing back the darkness, the colour of the sky and the water changing to a deep indigo. The breeze caressed her skin. The water lapped gently. She held onto Mac, and he held onto her. Tears ran down her cheeks, and she didn't blink them away, but smiled through them.

She watched the flashing lights of the ambulance draw up on the bank, and the lights of a boat move quickly closer along the river, but their lights were weak in comparison to the brightening blaze rising in the sky, against which the buildings were only silhouettes.

It would be a beautiful day.


	20. Chapter 20

The sun rose gold over the still-sleeping city. Stella stood by the window, her forehead pressed against the cool glass, and watched it. There were so many colours – greens, pinks, oranges, reds, golds, and the pale blue of the sky behind.

There was no one on the streets just yet. The city hadn't woken.

The people didn't know what they were missing.

She watched the ball of the sun float up from the grasp of the horizon and hover unsupported, hanging in the deepening blue, the other colours fading into memories. Still she waited, in the appropriately named room.

"Stella?"

She looked around as Lindsay entered, holding a bag. "Change of clothes. My spares from my locker."

Stella automatically took them from her, but hesitated to move.

Lindsay read her meaning in her face. "I'll wait here while you find somewhere to change."

"Thanks," came the reply, but Stella still hesitated.

Lindsay played her card, the trace of a smile floating around the corners of her mouth. "You know perfectly well that they wanted to check you back in as a patient, Stell. If you catch pneumonia now from standing around in soaking clothes, as you have been for hours, you aren't going to have much of an argument."

A smile crept onto Stella's face at Lindsay's stern tone. "I'm sorry. It's just…"

"I know you don't want to miss hearing anything, don't worry. I'll wait here, and if there's any news I'll find out."

After a final moment's hesitation, Stella disappeared from the room. Lindsay sat on a chair and took her turn to wait, finding that her eyes too were drawn to the window, avoiding the fake-cheery posters on the walls – cartoon fish, motivational slogans, tropical islands, sunscreen advertisements, and warning symptoms of meningitis.

All there was to do at the moment was wait.

- - - - -

"And that's the guy?" Danny asked. "The reason why we're still here and not waiting for news on Mac?"

"Yep," replied Flack. "Besides the fact that life's still going on, and people are still killing each other. Right now we're more use here, getting on with work. Mac's still in surgery."

The two men looked through the glass to the man sitting at the table in the small bare room. His jaw was clenched and he stared straight at what was to him an opaque mirror, seemingly aware that he was being watched.

"You haven't interviewed him yet?"

"No. He's been sitting there a while."

"Why hasn't he already been arrested and locked away?"

Flack shrugged his shoulders slightly in defence. "First of all, we need to get this whole thing done with right now, so it doesn't come back to bite us anytime soon. That means everything in the right order, and you know it's always better and quicker if you can get all the files done with before the confession, or denial of one. Although he doesn't really have much of a choice."

Danny sighed. "Believe it or not, Flack, my brain can handle the concept of proper police procedure."

"Really, Messer? Wow, I learn something new every day."

"Yeah, funny."

"I try. But anyway, the main reason I've been waiting is I want to know how Mac's doing first. Can't stand the thought of talking to that guy not knowing, one way or the other."

Danny nodded. "Lindsay's with Stella now, or should be. She took her over some dry clothes."

"She's braver than me, then."

"Whad'ya mean by that?"

"Have you actually _seen_ Stell since yesterday in the lab? I wouldn't dare interrupt her. I tried telling her to go and get some rest, something to eat, and she nearly bit my head off." He was interrupted by the tone of his cell, and stepped away from Danny to answer it.

Danny stared at Haimes, trying to pick out in his face some telltale trait of character which would suggest that he was a murderer, a rapist, an attacker. It was an ordinary face. The sort he walked past every day on the streets, sat next to in bars, ignored on the subway.

His thoughts were broken as Flack strode quickly back over, firm steps past Danny, and opened the door. "C'mon then. Let's get this guy to send himself down."

"You mean – ?"

A massive grin spread over Flack's face. "I just talked to Lindsay. Mac's going to be ok. He's going to be ok."

- - - - -

Stella stood in another room, by another window. She still wasn't at her goal, but she was getting closer to it. Getting closer to him. He was only just down the corridor, she'd been told, being moved into a recovery room, and they would let her in to see him as soon as they could. Really, she thought idly, all the rooms in a hospital were waiting rooms. You were always waiting, waiting to see someone, waiting for them to get better. But right now she was content to wait, for a little while.

Lindsay would probably be wondering where she was, or had guessed already. She had been on her way back, and had met the doctor coming in the opposite direction, who had passed on his news and, at her insistence, taken her as far along this last corridor as was possible, left her in the closest room to him.

He was going to be alright. She kept the thought of it folded close to her chest, feeling the warmth it spread through her. And he was alive.

_Alive._ That word was beautiful. It floated, spiralling, spinning, in the air, pale gossamer threads trailing from it, singing in the sunlight.

The sky was a deep blue, speaking of the summer to come, and there were no clouds. It wouldn't have been possible for there to be any clouds, not today.

"Ms Bonasera?"

She turned, towards the man in the white coat, her face held in a question.

"You can see him now."

- - - - -

There was a day, somewhere. For Stella it passed unnoticed, the seconds unmarked. There was a window in the room, and the blue sky smiled encouragingly at her as she sat by the bed. She held his hand, and didn't let him go. From time to time she talked to him, but mostly she just sat with him, waiting.

The rest of the team came and went. Crime didn't stop, so work couldn't stop. But they found time for visits, and promises to come back after shift. Lindsay brought Stella coffee and a sandwich. Flack and Danny brought chocolate, and the news that Jacob Haimes had confessed to all the charges he'd been presented with, after learning that he had failed to kill his witness. Hawkes had brought nothing with him, but had sat in silence with her for a while, and that was more than enough.

And the sun glided through the sea of the sky, which darkened behind it, until there was a sunset, red and orange and purple, which she couldn't see directly from where she sat, but the whole sky was a mirror for it.

Then came night, and with it the stars, although they weren't visible through the reflecting glass. She knew that they were there nonetheless. A nurse tried to draw the curtains, but Stella told her to leave them open.

And all the time, Mac lay there. There was a litany of injuries, but, as the doctor had said, he was 'extraordinarily lucky' in which injuries he _didn't_ have. No neck or spinal damage, no head injury, apart from the one Haimes had given him. The damage from the impact had mostly been internal, and minimal, and the surgery he'd gone through had been successful. He'd hit the river feet first, and that had made all the difference.

Luck had always favoured him. But then, she had never stopped hoping.

Her friends began to filter in. There were kind words, and smiles, and encouragement. Hands laid on hers to give her strength, and on Mac's, too. More and more chairs inside the room. They talked quietly around her, but Stella didn't join in. She sat quietly and watched Mac, and waited.

Danny and Lindsay left first, arms around each others' waists, her head resting on his shoulder. Then Hawkes, with a soft apology for having the early shift the next morning.

Flack stayed. "Get some sleep," he told her, gently. "I'll sit here for a while."

She shook her head. "I'm staying with him."

"You need sleep, though. He'd understand."

"I'm not leaving him," she said firmly. "I promised him I wouldn't."

"Is there anything I can say to convince you?"

She shook her head, but she smiled too. "_You_ haven't slept for God-knows how long. I should probably be telling _you_ to go."

"Look who's talking," he grumbled, but he was trying to stifle a yawn at the same time. "Ok then. I'll catch some sleep now, but I'll come back in the morning and you'll let me take over here, ok?"

"Deal," she agreed. He touched her on the shoulder as he left.

She continued waiting. There was warmth in his hand, there had been all day, but she still needed the contact to reassure herself that he was still there. The lights were dim, and presently she slept, head bent down against her shoulder and the side and back of the chair, hand still holding his.

- - - - -

She woke to the sun slanting in through the window, ribbons of it drifting idly over her face. It was another beautiful day, and Mac's hand was still warm in hers.

She still waited, watching the golden streaks which slid slowly across the wall, and the lacy pattern thrown over the bed. Soon the sun no longer looked directly at the two of them, and she could see the blueness of that wonderfully blue sky.

"Open your eyes for me," she whispered. "Come back to me now."

She ran her hand gently over his brow and through his hair.

He opened his eyes as her soul, which had followed him down into the dark places where he'd been, called him back to her.

His grey eyes were the most beautiful sight she'd ever seen.

She smiled at him, controlling her voice which threatened to shake, and keeping her tone matter-of-fact. "Hi."

He blinked to focus on her face. "Hi," he murmured.

"Welcome back."

"Did you – miss me?" His voice was slow, and quiet. But his.

She laughed slightly, and blinked back tears. "Of course I did. But I'm angry at you, you realise?"

"Sorry, Stell."

"You should be." But her smile gave the lie to her words. "How do you feel?"

"Tired."

"You sleep for now, then."

His eyes fell closed. She watched the light on his face, and the bright blue sky through the window. She was in no hurry. They had all the time in the world.

- - - - -

Hawkes strolled along the hospital corridor, knowing the way without looking by now, after following it faithfully for the last few days. When he came to the right room he knocked, and then pushed the door open.

"You know what I think of you," he said to the occupants as he stepped inside. "But then, both of you seem to take pleasure in flouting medical advice."

Mac laughed. He was sitting on the edge of the bed. "I'm fine. I've been cleared to leave."

"No, you forced them to clear you to leave. There _is_ a difference."

"He's not going to listen to you," Stella pointed out. "I've already tried."

Hawkes sighed. "Yeah, point taken. I'm just warning him."

"You know, 'he' can hear you," Mac said dryly.

Stella winked at Hawkes. "Ignore him, he's just fed up with being cooped up in here."

Hawkes laughed. "Well, I've brought the car to give you two a lift." He gestured to a file he was holding. "I just need to drop this off, descriptions of two suspects we're looking for. Thought I'd come in first to warn you to be ready."

Mac caught Stella staring at him once the door had swung closed again. "What?"

She grinned mischievously. "You hardly ever wear jeans."

"I also hardly ever trust Danny to grab a set of clothes for me from my apartment. Now I realise why."

"Relax, Mac. It's not like you're going to work now."

"Don't I remember you coming straight to work from the hospital?" he teased.

She glared at him. "_Slight_ difference in circumstances, I seem to remember."

She had been leaning against the windowsill, but at his gesture she came and sat beside him on the bed. "Are you ok?" she asked, and her tone was serious, deep behind the superficial question.

He looked into her eyes, and nodded. He took her hand. "Thank you," he said, very quietly.

She didn't ask what for, knowing the answer already, beyond what could be put into words. "We take care of each other, remember?"

The sunlit moment passed slowly between them, as they sat there, not moving.

Somewhere outside, a bird was singing, a dog was barking, traffic was drifting past. Somewhere inside, footsteps clicked down corridors, voices chimed. But between the two of them, no words were needed.

Hawkes pushed open the door again, the spell of silence fading. "We're good to go," he announced. "Just tell me which of you I should drop off where."

Stella looked at Mac. The sunlight winked at her. "I've still got that bag of clothes and things at yours," she said. "I'd better collect it."

He was still holding her hand. The sky was a bright soaring blue of joy. He met her eyes, and saw the laughter contained there. She, of course, already knew what he meant, even before he opened his mouth. She'd made him a promise, after all.

"Maybe you could – stay for a while?"

He didn't hear what she replied over the birdsong, and his heartbeat which now contained hers too, and the sun that sang in its flight. But her eyes told him.

And that, after all, was enough.

**FIN**

* * *

**A/N: Well, now I've finished, and I'm quite sad about it! This is the longest thing I've ever written, and I'm really going to miss it. But I am still amazed at the response I've had to this! So thank you very much to everyone who reviewed, and and everyone who added it to alerts/favourites lists. I'd love to hear what you thought about this last chapter, and about the whole story in general.**

**And as soon as I can I'll be writing some more! However, exams are fast approaching, so you may not see too much of me for a while. But watch this space! Kate x **


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